COVID-19: Honda makes PPE for frontline workers

As part of its response to the global pandemic, Honda Engineering North America is manufacturing and distributing personal protection equipment for frontline healthcare professionals. Honda engineers have developed new methods to use existing manufacturing equipment to produce critically needed face shields and have donated 70,000 face shields to healthcare workers at 305 medical facilities in 45 US states to date with plans to donate another 60,000 in the coming days.

The engineers leveraged the company’s expertise in plastic injection molding, 3D printing, supply chain and logistics to produce PPE. The face shields were made by designing new uses for high-speed injection-molding technology ordinarily used in the production of vehicle components. While the US unit is manufacturing face shields, a multi-company effort in Canada that includes Honda of Canada Mfg. is making the frames, shields and headbands for additional units.

Honda began making face shield frames in March, using a network of 3D printers at five manufacturing facilities. However, when the company’s engineers realised that the 3D printers could not produce the volume to meet expected demand, they began looking at other options and focused on one of the in-house manufacturing capabilities: plastic injection molding.

After studying various designs in consultation with healthcare professionals, the team began building a special die to enable the plastic injection molding equipment to produce over 3,000 face shields per hour. “It was a comprehensive effort with our Honda design and manufacturing teams working together to quickly solve this challenge,” said Eric Walli, Regional Planning Leader of Honda North America. “We were looking at materials, doing scientific work to understand if what we put in a face shield would be safe for humans to wear and all of this was occurring as we sought to rapidly begin, and then ramp up production.”

Once the frames were produced, Honda helped establish a supply chain and used its manufacturing expertise to design and develop automatic packing lines to prepare the shields for high-volume shipping. In addition to producing face shields, Honda has been involved in a number of other initiatives to address issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including assembling components for ventilators, providing modified Honda Odyssey minivans to transport people potentially infected with COVID-19, and donating more than 200,000 items including gloves, N95 masks, alcohol wipes, half-mask respirators and other types of protective gear.