Terry Ellis, general manager of Acro Tool & Die in Akron, started reaching out last month via the internet in search of a mission his company could undertake to help combat the coronavirus pandemic.
 |
|
Terry Ellis, general manager of Acro Tool & Die, and Todd Ellwood, the company's engineering manager, with a mold insert to produce headbands for plastic face shields. |
On March 31, Ellis received an answer in the form of an email from MAGNET. The Cleveland-based business consultant, inquired whether Acro’s 3-D printers could quickly create a mold insert needed to make injection molded headbands for medical face shields.
A little more than a week later, Acro is one of 19 companies furiously engaged in a project led by MAGNET to produce up to one million face shields that frontline health-care workers in Ohio can wear over their surgical masks as they care for coronavirus patients.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced the formation of the cooperative effort Thursday during his daily news briefing on the coronavirus pandemic. JobsOhio, the state’s economic development arm, will finance the undertaking with a commitment of $2 million to $3 million.
“We started reaching out that first week all over the internet,” Ellis said in a phone interview with cleveland.com.. “We knew we had talent and technologies that could help. We just needed a project.”
Most of the mold inserts made by Acro, which has started going by the name Metalcraft Solutions, will fit inside larger molds made by Esterle Mold & Machine in Stow and Little Tikes of Hudson. Little Tikes also will package injection-molded parts into kits for delivery.
A number of companies are needed to fill out the supply chain given the enormity of the task, said Ethan Karp, president and chief operating officer at MAGNET, which does research and provides consulting for the manufacturing sector.
The mission is further complicated by the fact that molds used in the injection process are often unique to a specific machine, which means capacity is limited, he said.
Karp said the effort began more than a month ago, when hospitals began warning about shortages of personal protective equipment and University Hospitals asked MAGNET about using 3-D printers in the production process.
The reply, according to Karp: “We can help.”
MAGNET’s engineers began working on designs and then started to collaborate with manufacturing giant Eaton Corp. and doctors from Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals.
Prototypes were shipped to the hospitals for their review. The engineers and doctors also communicated by email and video-conferencing.
“We were getting real-time feedback,” said Michael Regelski, senior vice president and chief technology officer for Eaton’s electrical sector. “ . . . We need the shield a little bit higher . . . We need the clamp a little bit sturdier.”
The pace of the project picked up considerably on April 1, when DeWine called on manufacturers to help produce much needed protection equipment and reassured them that the state would provide the money to pay them.
Production of the shields will begin next week and take about five weeks to reach one million. They will be added to the Ohio Department of Health stockpile for distribution to hospitals.
Recent modeling has suggested Ohio’s peak surge in the number of coronavirus patients may occur sooner than expected, perhaps within a week, and not be as severe as earlier anticipated. But Karp said MAGNET and the manufacturers are planning for the worst-case scenario. And any surplus shields will eventually get used.
Ellis, for one, has been glad to be part of a collective effort to get through an unimaginable crisis.
“I’ve never been involved in a project like this where so many companies put competition, profit and schedule behind and focused on the purpose of the project and worked together to do that,” he said.
