ADAC & Covid-19
Week of March 16 off-site meetings and employee events are being cancelled due to virus concerns. Our recently completed headquarters is looking like a ghost town as we start testing our infrastructure of working remotely. On Friday night receive an email and meeting invite for 8 am Saturday meeting. The meeting is a project with a large OEM producing parts for ventilators. We reviewed about 175 pieces that morning from there the team was split into molding and 3D printing. Out of those parts we were down to 35 parts that could possibly be produced additively. Most were none critical (brackets, clips, and buttons). From there it was a debated if items would be approved and what a roller coaster ride it was. I was told to pursue it till we are told no. So I went to every vendor and resource I had by Sunday afternoon we had 40+ HP MJF machines from across the country on board to support. Sunday at 6pm we were told additive would be a no go for this project. Everything will be injection molding.
From there I was getting requests for mask designs and few other items. For me I wanted to make sure whatever I produce was safe for the user. I have been reading more than normal amount of articles to build my knowledge on what is safe. I knew for sure I would be staying away from masks all together. The end of day on the 23rd everyone in our Innovation Center was sent home per the Governors order. As management sorted out what is essential. I ended up returning next day. To support engineering launches and be the building supervisor. I was running 6 machines for launch support as my techs were still not approved to return. Along with my standard duties and newly acquired building duties. So supporting the fight was hindered for a week or so. My team was approved after 3 days off to return to work.
By this time there were some large movements forming in additive sector. So I was put in contact with a man running visors by himself at a small local shop on the 26th. I teamed up with to help increase his output of FDM visors and my goal was to get him a 1000 visors. I had managed to get some of my vendors to support this. We going to get this done things were lining up nicely. Ran my FDM machines all weekend to support this. And on Monday we found out PET/PETG was getting low. Larger companies were purchasing all that was available to ramp up production. And that brought us to a halt.
I still monitor what is approved for additive on the NIH website and will continue to support where I can. I have been running ear savers/mask adjusters on my HP 540 for past few weeks. We have produced 1500+ of these and donated to local hospitals. I am proud to say everyone I have been working with went above and beyond to support front line workers.