Airbus teams up with Portsmouth businesses to make 40,000 face shields for NHS workers

Engineers at the aerospace corporation took an existing design available on the internet for 3D printed face shields and adapted it to make it producible in large quantities.

Working with city companies AMH Designs and Pressco Precision Engineering Ltd, the firms have started an initial production of 10,000 face shields.

The initial quantity of protective equipment will be given to healthcare workers in NHS hospitals across Hampshire, London and Norfolk and also to Hampshire’s Local Resilience Forum for distribution to a wide range of care settings.

Airbus has said that at least 30,000 more will be produced at raw material cost to support future demand.

The components are being injection moulded by Pressco Ltd in Hilsea using a tool designed by AMH free of charge and then moved a short distance to the Airbus satellite cleanroom where they are being assembled ready for dispatch.

Martin Cohen, a senior systems engineer who is leading the project at Airbus, said: ‘Our teams in Portsmouth were very keen to help with the fight against Covid-19 so we used our expertise and local contacts to come up with a plan for protective face shields.

‘We initially 3D printed the frames with the support of colleagues in the Airbus space team in Stevenage.

SEE ALSO: Portsmouth man who offered surplus PPE to key workers has now ordered thousands of items to hand out

‘This was invaluable for getting the design right and to enable us to send prototypes to injection control experts for evaluation.

‘We then moved on from the initial plan to 3D print them as we would only have been able to produce about 10 a day. By teaming with these two local companies we can now produce the plastic frames in bulk using injection moulding, which is over 700 times faster than 3D printing.’

Airbus says that crucially these PPE face shields provide protection for the eyes and face and are intended for use with FFP3 type masks, reducing cross contamination between patient and carer.

Production can continue at a rate of up to 10,000 face shields per week depending on demand. The Airbus Portsmouth team is also making the design freely available to other companies across the country who could also produce the face shields in similar numbers.

The design is also being certified to meet the recently published UK government specifications for PPE.

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