How It All Started
Since the start of the nationwide MCO on the 18th of March, our multi-disciplinary team of product development specialists have been staying in touch via video conferencing on a daily basis. Due to the current situation faced by front line medical personnel, the team has challenged ourselves to apply our capabilities and resources to rapidly develop and deploy product innovations that would assist in the war effort against COVID 19. What began as an ideation exercise quickly evolved into a list of product ideas that ranged from simple and pragmatic to more than a few that were quite wild and crazy to say the least.
Image: Expedio Team on Google Hangouts
In order to prioritize ideas for execution, Tee Chian (Technical Director) reached out to some industry partners in digital manufacturing (3D Printing). He shared an idea, a photo of his first prototype of the face shield and asked the group if the mask would be something worth pursuing. And that’s where it all began.
Our goal is simple, to produce as many face shields as possible with the lowest cost. As we have utilized 3D printing for various projects before this, we have considered its possibilities, however, the main limitation with 3D printing is time, and with the volume of face shield needed at this point of time by the medical front liners, it may not be the most suitable method to go with. After much considerations of the pros and cons, we decided to go without 3D printing for a more efficient production output. You can understand more about 3D Printing and it’s limitation here.
Image: 1st Prototype in our Serdang makeshift workshop!
The official design brief came from Tee Chian on Friday night, giving final directive to the team to start producing these face shields with available materials the team could find. Do take note at this point of time, our team members are all working remotely from home and all coordination and planning was done via WhatsApp. The team then proceeded with sharing execution plans up until 1am in the morning, even over the weekend!
Sourcing
On Saturday, our team gathered materials from any available resources they could find. Some went back to our design studio located in PJ, others headed to their neighbourhood hypermarket, and some even contacted a couple of Facebook groups located within their district to source for the needed materials.
Image: Restocking on foam! Found a supplier who could help us out.
Some of the materials were obtained by donation where Tee Chian managed to gather around 300 pieces of plastic sheets from his friends. Another was from Facebook donations, where Wei Min (Lead Designer) shared on Facebook that he was low on materials. The biggest challenge were the elastic bands as most haberdashery shops are currently closed, but the team still managed obtain some. The other materials required are PU/PE foam. With the MCO in place, our team made sure that during the short trips here and there to gather materials, they wore the necessary protective gear, practiced good hygiene and social distancing.
Production
The process of making the face shield started right after Tee Chian passed the materials to Wei Min & Qiao Yuan (mechanical engineer) around 6.30pm, Saturday. With sufficient materials for the first batch, the team proceeded with their makeshift workshops at home, with the help of some family members. It took about an hour to R&D it, to see which way of mounting the foam to the plastic pieces is stronger, and also testing multiple ways of the elastic band attachment. We experimented with different thickness of the foam, etc.
Image: 60 Face Shields completed in our Kepong’s Home Makeshift Workshop.
It took about 2.5 hour to finish 110 pieces in our Serdang makeshift workshop, and another 60 in our Kepong makeshift workshop. On Monday, we successfully deployed the first batch of 110 face shield to Hospital University Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM).
Image: 110 Face Shield completed in Serdang’s home makeshift workshop.
Another of our team member is also working on another prototype, that aims to cool down individuals who are in full protective suit, but this is still in the development phase at the moment. There are a laundry list of other product ideas that the team is eager to develop, prototype, test and deploy throughout the remainder of this nationwide effort against COVID-19.
Total Face Shield Produced [Updated 26/3/2020]
110 - Delivered to HUKM on 23rd March
60 - Delivered to Hospital Selayang on 24th March
200 - Delivered to Hospital Serdang on 26th March
Check out how the rest of the 3D Printing Community in Malaysia join the fight against this pandemic.