3D printing - a breath of fresh air in a pandemic Industry Europe’s Ash Jones Spoke To The Boss Of The US 3D Printing Company About How The Coronavirus Outbreak Has Meant Shifting Production To Deal With The Pandemic.
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ith Covid-19 sweeping its way across the globe at an unprecedented scale, the effect it has unleashed on businesses is something nobody could have predicted. With this comes a particular danger to those on the frontlines, where the standard measures of social distancing cannot be met. 3D printing as an industry is still in its relative infancy; however, Covid-19 has provided unexpected room for innovation. Today we speak to Blake Teipel, the CEO of US 3D printing company, Essentium, on how they have shifted their production in the wake of a global catastrophe. Industry Europe: Thank you for speaking to us, Blake. You’ve mentioned that Essentium’s manufacturing has shifted because of Covid-19. Could you possibly elaborate on that?
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Blake Teipel: We have switched to a more abridged manufacturing role. We’ve been working with the FDA and others to test the design for community-use 3D printed PPE masks. There are a lot of these designs for M45-style masks, but really what we’re trying to focus on is something that is safe and effective, and they are printed using our classic TPU-74d. The main purpose of this is to preserve M45s solely for the medical profession and the folks on the frontline. Its design allows us to print it on a number of printers so we can get as many masks out there as possible. Masks are a large part of this response effort, as seen in countries like Korea, Japan and China. There has been a large shift in public focus as to the efficacy of them in order to try and help contain the virus.
IE: In order to contain Covid-19, many countries have closed their borders which undoubtedly has an effect on businesses. How have these border closures affected Essentium? BT: Border closures have affected production a lot. We have a global supply chain for many of our components, which has hindered us sourcing items such as printers. We may receive shipments of machines, but the logistic rates involved are often horrendous. As far as manufacturing itself goes, companies will always be cautious for the first 6-8 weeks of the year. The early rise of Coronavirus didn’t help in this case, as we didn’t know whether or not it would blossom into anything problematic. When Covid-19 did strike, it proved to be a wake-
