GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- HexArmor, an industrial personal protective equipment, announced a strategic partnership with Verve Motion to bring SafeLift ergonomic powered exosuits to industrial workforces across North America.

The collaboration marks a meaningful step beyond traditional PPE, addressing one of the most persistent and costly challenges in workplace safety — musculoskeletal disorders. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, musculoskeletal disorders — sprains, strains, and back injuries from repetitive lifting and material handling — account for nearly one-third of all serious workplace injuries. The Liberty Mutual 2025 Workplace Safety Index puts the cost to U.S. businesses at more than $13 billion annually and ranks overexertion as the No. 1 cause of serious workplace injury for 25 consecutive years.

“We’ve never been okay with the status quo — that’s been true since day one,” said Steve VanErmen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HexArmor. “The idea that workers should just expect to go home sore, that aching backs and worn-down bodies are part of the job — we don’t accept that. There’s always a better way to protect people, and it’s our job to continue to find those innovations and help bring them to life. That’s the goal with SafeLift.”

SafeLift is a soft, lightweight, powered exosuit designed to assist the lower back during lifting and material-handling tasks. The exosuit uses motion sensors to detect when a worker is lifting and activates a small motor that provides real-time assistance to the lower back, reducing the physical load of every lifting or lowering motion by up to 40 percent. In real-world deployments, this means the suit does nearly half the work, so workers experience significantly less strain and fatigue throughout their entire shift, dramatically reducing the risk of injury.

Unlike bulky, rigid exoskeleton systems, the SafeLift exosuit’s lightweight, flexible design allows workers to bend, twist, and move naturally throughout a full shift, making it practical for all-day use in warehouses, distribution centers, and other industrial environments.

“Industrial workers are performing physically demanding jobs every day, yet the technologies designed to protect and support them have not evolved at the same pace,” said Ignacio Galiana, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Verve Motion. “HexArmor understands these workers, their jobs, and the environments where they operate at a level that most companies never get close to — that’s what makes them the ideal partner to help bring wearable robotics into the mainstream. Together, we believe exosuits will become a standard part of the industrial safety toolkit, as essential as hard hats, safety glasses, and gloves, and this partnership is a major step toward making that vision a reality.”

Central to the partnership is the Verve Logic analytics platform, which provides safety managers with a dashboard to track how and when SafeLift is used across their operations. Rather than waiting for injury reports or relying on anecdotal feedback, safety teams can see in real time where physical demands are highest, identify patterns over time and make informed decisions before problems compound. For EHS managers tasked with justifying safety investments and demonstrating program impact, such visibility has traditionally been out of reach.

Through this partnership, HexArmor will integrate SafeLift into its broader portfolio of worker solutions, supporting customers through evaluation, implementation and on-the-job adoption. The companies will initially focus on industries with high volumes of manual material handling, including distribution, manufacturing and construction.

“Safety managers are responsible for a lot,” VanErmen said. “SafeLift with Verve Logic takes one of the hardest problems off their plate — not by adding more to track, but by finally making the data visible. They can see where strain is building and whether their interventions are working in real time. That’s what excites us most about this partnership. It’s not only about the technology, but it’s also about giving the people who care most about worker safety the tools to actually prove it’s working and keep getting better.”

The partnership reflects a broader shift in workplace safety, where leading organizations are moving beyond compliance-driven programs toward solutions that address both immediate hazards and the long-term physical demands of the job.

For more information about the partnership or SafeLift, contact Todd Mellema, chief revenue officer at HexArmor, at todd.mellema@hexarmor.com.