Lifting system 

RIT students Sean Petterson (Senior Industrial Design) and Justin Hillery (Senior Multidiciplinary Studies), were recently awarded patents for their new invention, the Strong Arm. Both students sat down with Professor Chance Glenn (host of Intelligent Conversations) to discuss their invention as well as entrepreneurship and business. You can listen to the complete podcastGet Down to Business on iTunes or visit the shows Facebook page.

Please feel free to contact us with inquires or support. This project is quickly improving as it approaches commercialization.

Strongarmvest.com

Reach us at ************* contact@strongarmvest.com *********

-PROJECT TEAM-

Sean Petterson

3rd year Industrial design/ Entrepreneurship

smp4439@rit.edu

631 903 4965

Justin Hillery

3rd year Marketing/ Entrepreneurship / Multidisciplinary

jlh7463@rit.edu

585 490 9230

Strong Arm Lift Assisting Technology, LLC.
Healthcare: Ergonomic Lift Assisting clothing


Business and business model: Direct sales model with B2B licensing sales and Razor and Blade direct sales methods.
Structure: Limited Liability company.
Value proposition: Offering the Strong Arm lifting Garment will offer corporations an opportunity to reduce workplace injury and reduce fatigue in the workplace. This allows for a reduction in workman%u2019s compensation costs and an increase in worker productivity.
General description: The Strong Arm is a garment that contains a system of straps that allows the worker in a materials handling or any lifting scenario to lift objects easier and with less risk of injury. 
Product/service: 
The core product of the Strong Arm Company is the Strong Arm lifting Garment. The x-3 is a system of linear elements contained in the garment that takes the forces of a load from the injury prone hands, arms, neck, shoulders and lower back, and distributes those forces strategically to stronger more stable areas of the torso. The placement of the linear elements applies forces to areas of the body that would need support when lifting. Much like a spotter in the gym, the straps guide the lifter into the ergonomic lifting position prescribed by NIOSH. The Garment can be sold in a variety of configurations to appeal to its large market span.  The Strong Arm garment will be available for sale along with a number of accessories to customize the garment for specific tasks. In a direct sales method the Garment will be sold and the attachments and accessories will be sold separately in a Razor and blade Sales method. Theses accessories include patentable grips for suitcases, hooks and claws for bagged materials, devices for moving packages lower than 6%u201D from the ground (another discovered problem) and more.
$50 billion is spent every year in America compensating injuries due to lifting. That%u2019s an average of $8,567 per claim. At $117 dollars an employer can protect 80 workers before offsetting the cost of one average injury. At the same time the device helps increase worker productivity. 

Added value of this company is that the X-3 device can be retrofitted to any existing garment. Therefore the technology can be licensed to current garment manufacturers allowing the technology to benefit specific market segments utilizing existing channels. The licensing of this product will give any company a competitive advantage over the competition. 
 Development stage:  Fully tested prototype.
Competitors: Handi straps, lifting straps
Edge over the competition:
 
Products are inferioir, offering less support, less benefits and some require two peoplke to use
Sustainability: Innovation will keep us current much like the current garment , we also sell attachments and accessories such as hand grips and pockets and added supports to customize for each task
IP protection, : will patent the novelty of the X-3 and patent the design of the garments, the attachments and the uses of them
Markets
Starting with materials handling then the markets will include sports, home and garden, consumer lifting, rubbish removal, military and more
Bariers to Entry:  selling it as ppe will allow us to rasie prices. This requires support from insurance companiues that will make this a cost reducing device giving even more added vale to the device increasing sales. Same goes for current regulation like NIOSH LIFTING guides
Customers: Fedex, Kodak, TSA, factory workers, us postal service, UPS, Poland spring. 

Target Market 

According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics Non-Fatal Occupational Injuries report states;  Labor and freight, stock and  material movers had a an incident rate of 407 cases per 10,000 full time workers and the highest number of days away from work in 2009. 38% of injuries, such as sprains, strains, tears, were back related injuries.  While many industries are seeing a decrease in days off work in the past 3 years others such as truck drivers and light handlers are showing a substantial increase in days off.  

Therefore, Strong Arm will target companies who have a significant number of personnel whose job is parcel moving, luggage handling, carrying and lifting materials. We will hand select target companies based on their number of lifting related injuries and how effective we think our product will be in their day to day operations.

Companies will be selected based on data from   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics%u2019 Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities (IIF) reports and Osha%u2019s  Form 300. This data provide, Total Case Rate (TCR), Days Away, Restricted, and Transfer (DART) case rate, and the Days Away From Work (DAFWII) in which present  the name, address and  industry  of companies with high back and lifting injuries. These companies will be in the greatest need of our product.

Strong Arm secondary target market includes individuals that perform lifting task for home projects, small business owners their employees who%u2019s daily operations consist of lifting. These targeted individuals may fear a future back injury, aggravating a current one or simply want to ease the task of lifting.
Lastly, the Strong Arm can be licensed out to many existing companies. Current medical companies such as Mueller inc. can add the brace to their current line of products. The novelty of the X-3 device is that the technology can be integrated into existing worker oriented garments. Manufactures such as Carhartt can utilize the X-3 by simply building the device directly into their existing garment line for added value and market edge. 

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