*ATC Managing Director, Marie Clifford.

A Shannon SME is producing face shields for the health sector free of charge.

Advanced Technical Concepts (ATC) located in Smithstown Industrial Estate is deploying its additive manufacturing division to 3D print face shields for the health sector on a pro-bono basis.

They currently supply industries such as aerospace, medical device, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, power generation and mining. It operates out of two facilities: one in Shannon and one on the outskirts of Limerick city. ATC specialise in providing engineering and supply chain solutions to manufacturing facilities in Ireland, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe.

“This initiative, which is part of a national effort to assist where needed, started out with our registering with Open Source Ventilator to assist in any way we could and this evolved into the Opensource PPE production effort,” Managing Director of ATC, Marie Clifford explained.

She confirmed that they were producing the face shields from their home working bases. “The Blood Bike network and the Southern 4X4 response support do the pickups when we have the product ready. Parts are then sterilised, assembled and distributed to HSE sites from a central location”.

Marie stressed that it’s important for everyone to play their role during the pandemic.

“Our team is delighted to play its part and contribute in whatever way we can to alleviate the stresses of the current situation. It’s all about each of us doing our bit, no matter how small, in these extraordinary times.”

Thus far their “small contribution” as Marie emphasised as resulted in one successful delivery of fifty face shields and another of sixty over the weekend. With their printers, they are capable of producing twenty per day.

“If anyone in the frontline services locally needs some they are free to contact us. Whilst the shields are currently distributed from the benchspace hub in Cork to the HSE and frontline staff depending on where they are most needed on a given day, the group are happy for people to distribute them locally if people know of groups currently in need of them”.

ATC is also equipped to assist with physical distancing solutions such as screens for workstations and benches. These are ideally suited to manufacturing facilities that might be struggling to adapt to health guidelines around social distancing. We also offer a range of floor markings and signage,” Clifford added.