The health emergency connected to the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic worldwide has caused a substantial suspension of the vast majority of face-to-face work activities that characterize manufacturing companies. The gradual reduction of new infections achieved thanks to the lockdown, has brought attention to the topic of how “restarting” the activities into work environments, which must be carried out guaranteeing health security and avoiding the kick-off of a new phase of expansion of the disease due to contacts in the workplace. On the other hand, this moment of “forced renewal” could be the best opportunity to accelerate and implement the innovative technologies fostered for “Industry 4.0” because of the significant socio-economic changes that it promises to bring.

The project requests an inexpensive and non-intrusive contact tracing technology that employees could wear. Knowing with accuracy which areas are visited by operators and their interactions during working activities, may help to reduce contagion and improve the implementation of social distancing measures. Indeed, proper data analytics algorithms are developed to leverage the information generated by the wearable sensors to assess contagion risk for the different working operators, activities, and areas, thus representing a useful tool to prevent COVID-19 diffusion in workplaces.