CraftBot Canada provides PPE and support for COVID

The CraftBot IDEX XL 3D Printer is a tool to help hospital and frontline workers in the movement to #3DPrintToProtect against COVID-19. PHOTO: CraftBot Canada

TORONTO — As Canadian businesses look to reopen, CraftBot Canada, a developer and manufacturer of 3D printers, launched a #3DPrintToProtect initiative with hospitals and other distribution partners to help frontline workers better protect themselves.

CraftBot redirected its resources to set up a Rapid Local Manufacturing (RLM) farm concept consisting of 12 3D printers printing and manufacturing thousands of face shields.

The RLM farm produced over 5,000 shields, which were given to local hospitals and businesses.

CraftBot says the initiative has been shared with distributors in various countries to empower them through hardware and software support in their local fight against COVID-19.

“This is an important initiative as face shields and PPE become the safest and fastest way to give the public confidence to return to a sense of normalcy,” said John Kassis, VP commercial for CraftBot, in a prepared statement.

CraftBot says it has worked with the following sectors to help prevent the spread of COVID-19:

• Hospitals: Working with the Lynn and Arnold Irwin Advanced Perioperative Imaging Lab (APIL) at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network, recognized as the largest health research organization in Canada, to support the mass production of face shields for frontline healthcare workers and provide an additional printer to supplement APIL’s printing hub for urgently needed parts for emergency ventilation systems.
• Distributors: Providing a 3D printer and 500 face shields to Shop3D.ca, a Canadian-based 3D printer national distributor and reseller.
• Retailers/Communities: Setting up an RLM centre at the printer reseller Digitmakers to help its employees manufacture PPE for the University Health Network hospitals and others that require it.

“Our goal is to help make PPE available so that anyone at home can purchase a 3D printer and help with this movement to #3DPrintToProtect,” added John Kassis. “We want all businesses to know that we are here to help them, whether it’s with PPE’s, rapid local manufacturing or just to help someone new into 3D printing. While we are acting locally within Canada, we have similar initiatives running within Germany, Hungary, the U.K., and the U.S. to make this a truly global movement.”