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SOUTHFELD, Mich. (April 1, 2020) – As the world continues to face this unprecedented health crisis, DENSO’s Maryville, Tennessee, facility is manufacturing thousands of face shields to help protect local health care workers responding to COVID-19. In Canada, an employee of DENSO’s Guelph, Ontario, facility answered InkSmith’s public call for people to 3D-print face shield components from home, and is sending them to the company for assembly and donation to Canadian hospitals.
“Every day DENSO is seeking new ways we can support the fight against COVID-19 in our communities across North America,” said Kenichiro Ito, executive officer of DENSO Corporation and chief executive officer of DENSO’s North American headquarters. “We have the resources and manufacturing ability to quickly produce some of the protective gear that is so critical right now. Words cannot express our gratitude to the front-line workers responding to this pandemic, but we will do our best to protect them while they risk their lives saving others.”
Within three days, DENSO’s employees in Maryville designed, modified, produced and donated 30 prototype face shields to Blount Memorial Hospital. The Maryville facility is now ramping up production to maximize the number of shields it can produce to help with medical equipment shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mike Mansfield, a section leader at DENSO’s Guelph facility and the employee 3D-printing face shield components, expects to deliver InkSmith 50 sets of face shield components every two days. DENSO in Guelph has also donated 500 surgical masks to local paramedics and 1,500 surgical masks to Guelph General Hospital, with support from Health and Safety Specialist Victoria McShannon.
“This is DENSO spirit at its finest and fastest,” said Mark Moses, Director, Intelligent Cockpit Division, DENSO Manufacturing Tennessee, Inc. “From idea, to design, to production, through safety and legal, it’s been a total team effort to support our health care workers during this crisis.”
Throughout North America, DENSO is working with local companies, agencies and community members to identify ways in which they can further support the broader fight against COVID-19’s spread. Earlier this month, DENSO donated nearly 2,000 N95 masks to hospitals in Michigan and North Carolina. And this week, DENSO joined a D-Wave project giving health care providers and researchers battling COVID-19 free access to quantum computing systems – high-powered computers that could facilitate medical breakthroughs.
To see all of DENSO’s COVID-19 updates, click here.