Honda is donating 130,000 face shields to medical staff around the US

One of the few beautiful things to happen throughout this COVID-19 The pandemic is that several automotive companies have worked to use their technical and manufacturing skills to provide them Solutions for the lack of personal protective equipment for medical professionals at the forefront.

Honda has already done this in several ways, including transforming several Odyssey minivans into dedicated ones Corona virus test transporter in Detroit, but it doesn’t stop there. In fact, it just announced on Monday that it is working to ramp up the production of its own face shields and plans to distribute more than 130,000 of them to medical personnel in the United States.

These are feel-good things, aren’t they? But how are you planning to do it all?

Well, Honda Engineering North America (also known as the proprietary company that lives at the brand’s manufacturing facility in Marysville, Ohio and designs most of the plant’s equipment) has found a way to use its existing plastic injection molding equipment to manufacture the clear plastic face shields to use.

Meanwhile, a group of companies in Canada – including Honda of Canada Manufacturing – are manufacturing the frames. Together, the two companies have already manufactured 70,000 face shields and distributed them to 305 medical facilities in 45 states, and are working intensively on the next 60,000 units planned.

“It was a major effort that our Honda design and manufacturing teams worked together to quickly resolve this challenge,” said Eric Walli, Honda North America Regional Planning Manager, in a statement. “We looked at materials and did scientific work to understand whether what we put in face protection is safe for humans. All of this happened when we tried to start production quickly and then start it up. “

But wait, there’s more. As you can imagine, it is a daunting task to determine which medical facilities need all of these face shields, let alone distribute them. For this reason, Honda has used its extensive US dealer network to help on both counts.

“We are incredibly grateful for this generous and much-needed donation from Honda,” said Gregory Monette, interim CEO of Community Hospital in Huntington Park, Southern California. “Our doctors, nurses and staff work tirelessly to care for the community, and these face shields help protect our staff and patients.”

Good job, Honda!