Stratasys leads COVID Coalition of 150 in ‘life and death' fight

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.—A 150-member and growing global coalition led by Stratasys Ltd. is facing the coronavirus pandemic head on, quite literally, producing hundreds of thousands of face shields for front-line workers in the health care and medical industries.

The international manufacturer of 3D printers began the charge late last month, and the COVID Coalition, as it's now called, shipped out 30,000 face shields in one week in mid-April alone, with 20,000 of those produced by Eden Prairie-based Stratasys Direct, a division of Israel-based Stratasys Ltd.

The medical industry demand, according to Stratasys, is upwards of 350,000 face shields required per month, which could not be produced by any one 3D printing manufacturer alone. As such, coalition members will look to bring injection molding on line soon to produce the disposable face shields at a more rapid clip.

"This is what 3D printing is for," said Scott Drikakis, Stratasys Healthcare Segments leader, Americas. "When you need to iterate designs rapidly, when you need to distribute the manufacturing load and get started fast, 3D printing is especially valuable.

"And this is a life or death moment for so many people."

Besides Minnesota, the face shields are being manufactured by Stratasys in Israel; Austin, Texas; and Valencia, Calif., as well as by many other locations around the world by COVID Coalition members, the firm said.

While the frames and visors are being 3D printed, Stratasys said medical technology company Medtronic and Minneapolis-based Dunwoody College of Technology, among other companies and institutions, will provide support for the plastic shield. Medtronic has paid for a number of plastic shields and is cutting the polyacrylic shields, while Dunwoody is machining polyacrylic build trays into face shields, Stratasys said.

Some coalition members are choosing to do the entire assembly themselves, from the shield to the frame to the rubber bands that hold it all together, in what Stratasys is calling the "DIY Model," available at stratasys.com/covid-19. There, organizations can join the coalition by requesting 3D printed products to help with the crisis, offer 3D printing capacity or request 3D printers or material for medical- or safety-related purposes.

"We have over 100 organizations in our GrabCAD Shop system to assign out orders to our partners," Drikakis said. "They generally ship visors in batches of 100, which we match up with the clear plastic face shields and rubber bands to hold it all together, and then we ship them to their final destinations."

Multiple large manufacturers and educational institutions with production-grade 3D printers have donated their capacity to help, including Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Queensborough Community College in New York City, and the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga.

Other COVID Coalition partners participating in some form include Boeing, General Atomics, the University of Central Florida, the University of Minnesota and Mattel, among many others, according to Stratasys.

"I have never seen collaboration across our industry the way I've been seeing it over the last couple weeks," Drikakis said. "The need is dire, but we are getting the kind of commitments from our coalition partners that will make a real difference and help buy time to scale up the manufacturing of shields and other essential supplies. This rapid, adaptive response is what 3D printing does exceptionally well, and I'm very proud of our employees and partners."

While Stratasys is producing face shields worldwide, shipments from Stratasys are for the U.S. market only, Drikakis said.

"They are going to different places based on who has requested them, not just 'hot spots,' from the Mayo Clinic (in Rochester, Minn.) to Orlando Health (in Florida)," he said.

So far, Stratasys said the coalition is serving more than 30 different health systems, covering hospitals, clinics, academic medical centers and nursing homes. The first shipments started March 25.

While Stratasys had an initial goal of producing 5,000 face shields by March 27, the coalition has far exceeded that number, producing 11,000 face shields in the first week alone.

Any 3D printing shop that wishes to help print at least 100 visors can join the coalition effort, Stratasys said.

In Europe, Stratasys is serving as a hub to connect service bureaus with those requesting help, with offers and requests coming in from most larger countries.

How they are made

Stratasys said COVID Coalition members are using a number of different fused deposition modeling materials to produce parts for the face shields, and even some non-FDM materials.

Stratasys' first choice has been ABS M30i, for its thermal and chemical resistance and excellent strength-to-weight ratios.

A variety of 3D printing techniques also are being used, with the preferred process for Stratasys Direct being laser sintering.

"The reason we've favored FDM is because it and the materials are so broadly available in the market and the goal here is to scale fast," Drikakis said. "The process is as simple as pull out the tray, break them off from the support material while they're still warm, and that's it."

While some coalition members have been printing overnight and during the day, others, like Stratasys Direct, are operating around the clock, Drikakis said.

And because the Stratasys teams producing the face shields and those tending to "normal" operations (with 3D printer production and related materials) are separate, no production has been diverted from Stratasys' traditional functions, Stratasys said. The company has, however, ramped up production of 3D printing materials in just that realm to support its partner network.

In addition, Stratasys has made free the material licenses on many of its high-end printers used to make the frame and visors during this time. And the company said it has been engaging in best practices for its workers in these essential operations.

"We view this as life and death work for our front line health care workers, and thus truly essential," Drikakis said. "That said, we are taking special precautions to keep maximum distance between workers and enforce other safety procedures."

He added that workers have access to appropriate PPE, and suppliers are not permitted in the building. Employees in different departments remain isolated from each other, Drikakis said.

"We are humbled by the opportunity to help," said Stratasys CEO Yoav Zeif. "We see additive manufacturing as an essential part of the response to the COVID-19 global epidemic. The strengths of 3D printing—to be anywhere, print virtually anything, adapt on the fly—make it a capability for helping address shortages of parts related to shields, masks and ventilators, among other things.

"Our work force and partners are prepared to work around the clock to meet the need for 3D printers, materials, including biocompatible materials, and 3D-printed parts."

CoVent-19 Challenge

For Stratasys and its partners, the fight against the coronavirus does not end with 3D-printed parts for face shields.

Along with Massachusetts General Hospital, the company is taking the lead on production of rapidly deployed ventilators through its aforementioned GrabCAD Shop, a community of engineers and designers with related resources that is owned and managed by Stratasys.

"We are also acutely aware of the threat of ventilator shortages," Drikakis said. "We have sponsored the CoVent-19 Challenge, developed by anesthesiology residents from Massachusetts General Hospital and hosted on the Stratasys GrabCAD site, to come up with designs for a rapidly deployable, minimum viable mechanical ventilator."

The challenge launched April 1 and has netted two dozen designs so far from designers and engineers. Stratasys' own application engineers that focus on health care are spending about 80 percent of their time tackling the ventilator problem, Drikakis said.

The company recently received positive news on tests by a third party laboratory on its MED610 PolyJet material, tests that found minimal biocompatibility risk for gas pathway components in respiratory and ventilator equipment.

Stratasys also will provide 3D prototyping services to the challenge finalists, he said.

"We are a living case study on the value of additive manufacturing," Drikakis said. "It is drawing the attention of manufacturing and health care leaders around the world, and will challenge status quo thinking about how supply chains should work and what they should look like, both for health care and manufacturing generally."

Drikakis said a large health system in Europe just acquired 60 of Stratasys' 3D printers so they would not have to depend on a factory "on the other side of the planet and to bring some control over what parts they produce." The health system has indicated it will produce up to 3,000 pieces per week for their needs.

"The crisis is forcing some imaginative thinking to get things done effectively, but it's amazing the ingenuity and industry collaboration we're seeing," Drikakis said.

Outside of the pandemic, Stratasys is the manufacturer of FDM, PolyJet and stereolithography 3D printers. The company's technologies are used to create prototypes, manufacturing tools and production parts for industries, including aerospace, automotive, health care, consumer products and education.