As companies around the world experience shortages of protective gear due to COVID-19, they shift to homemade supplies or use supplies multiple times to make up for the lack of resources. Engineering safe test tools has always been at the forefront of what we do at Fluke, and while we don’t have a stockpile of PPE, we do have tools.
Our Plastics team in Everett, Washington developed a prototype for much-needed industrial face shields that could be used by non-medical personnel in local hospitals and medical centers. Director of North America Operations, Engineering, Tyler Mohr walks us through the process of creating these shields from the manufacturing floor.
The Fluke Plastics team worked with users on the design, which is intended for non-medical use. These industrial face shields will be used by non-medical staff at the hospital and surrounding facilities.
“It’s nice to see that we are really driving toward improving and helping out the communities in which we live in a really big way,” Product Manager Michael Seaholm said. “There are really significant gaps in what hospitals have versus what they need, and any way we can help support that is just awesome.”
The team began with a daily production goal of 1,000 shields and, eventually with practice, ramping up to 10,000 per week. This is on top of the team’s regular daily work.
If you have the means to produce these industrial face shields for your community, here are the specifications, design files, and notices.
Download the design files for free
Notice: This industrial face shield design is not FDA approved for medical use. The industrial face shield design is being provided free of charge under the Creative Commons license.