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Personal Protective Equipment: It's Future in the Workplace.


Ideally when people say the future is NOW, we all have different interpretations to the phrase, what if NOW was Yesterday (advent of industrial revolution), Today (digitization), and Tomorrow (artificial intelligence and bionic internet body of things). The advent of industrial revolution kick-started with the invention of steam engine and invention of huge workplace machines that made production ten times faster, also subjected workers to leave their homes to a far location where these machines were situated because of the noise they produce and the smoke fume the workplace produced as a result of these machines. That was the beginning of extreme workplace hazard with the contemplation whether a family member will return back home whole or even return at all.


Subsequently, digitization came Today with better ways to workplace, health and safety activities. Although there are still hazardous machines being used, the safety level in the HSE department has increased drastically. There has been significant improvement in workplace safety over the past ages. The innovation of advanced technologies, regulations and safety measures have all contributed to making productivity safer and healthy, due to technological obsolescence there is still more work to be done to make the workplace a safer and healthy environment.


By the end of 2026, the market for personal protective equipment (PPE), which was valued at USD 48130 million in 2019, is anticipated to have grown to USD 81790 million, with a CAGR of 2.4 percent in that time. The 2026 projection to some might still not be agreeably regarded as the future of the PPE market, but with the gradual advancement to the next generation, with the introduction and use of AI and bionic internet bodies, the numbers will skyrocket. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, workers in the health sector barely used their protective gear as effectively as they used it during the global pandemic.


Agreeing to the fact that they effectively used it by nature of their job and what they are exposed to at a daily basis, they never implored friends and family to engage in the purchase and use of PPE but after the news of the global pandemic, PPE was given global attentions with masks burning into the skins of wearers. In my opinion, the future of PPE began immediately after the outbreak of the series of global pandemic we all have experienced over the recent years.


With the rapid programming of AI and testing of these magnificent internet bodies, we can conclude that the future of PPE wasn’t yesterday, Today but will definitely be Tomorrow. Presently, just the offset of this era, robots and software are already being programmed to perform in place of humans in major PPE use industries like health- taking patients complaints and prescribing an effective solution to such complaints, in the construction companies- robots are mounting perfectly plans already drawn out.

In conclusion, the future of PPE isn’t just what we have seen, but what is to come.


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