Manufacturer forms alliance to cope with the demand for PPE
Manufacturer and designer, Placon, has introduced the Face Shield Alliance to provide healthcare workers and first responders with adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Placon has been producing the plastic face shield subcomponent since March 19th, 2020. It started with demand from a local hospital and grew from there. The company has nine tools producing products at three of its manufacturing locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana.
To date, the organisation has shipped over 15 million units, but more are needed. Dan Mohs, chairman and CEO, commented: “We hear stories everyday about healthcare workers and first responders not having the PPE they need to do their jobs safely. We wanted to change the story, so we created a Face Shield Alliance.
“I reached out to some of my trusted peers in the industry and described our production process. We had already scaled up multiple facilities, so why not reach out externally and assist an alliance partner ramp up production.”
Dan Joyce, president and CEO at Portage Plastics, and Randy Gordon, president and CEO at Paradise Plastics, welcomed the opportunity and rose to the challenge to get much needed PPE face shield subcomponents to the Ford Motor Company for assembly.
Mohs added: “These companies have a great reputation for quality, and they were able to create additional capacity to aid the cause. The alliance helped us meet a common goal to make the world a safer place for healthcare workers and our communities.”
Production is currently at 4.5 million units per week, and the PPE face shield subcomponents are being shipped daily - sometimes even twice a day, in order to keep up with demand. The company has implemented extra safety precautions to minimise the introduction of Covid-19 into any of its facilities through sanitisation, compartmentalisation, health monitoring, PPE, and social distancing.
“I want to thank all of our employees, alliance partners, freight carriers, customers, and suppliers for the important work they are doing and product or service they provide us. We all need to work together to end this global pandemic,” Mohs concluded.