Wichita aviation companies making thousands of face shields for Ascension Via Christi
Spirit AeroSystems will deliver 8,000 face shields to Ascension Via Christi this week to help healthcare workers protect themselves from the coronavirus, providing much-needed personal protective equipment during a worldwide shortage.
The plexiglass face guards cover healthcare workers’ faces and create an extra barrier between the worker, the mask the worker is wearing and the patient.
In many cases, hospitals and government agencies have had to compete with each other on the global open market for a limited supply of PPE, making the equipment slow to arrive and expensive.
Spirit, which has been experiencing a pandemic-related hardship of its own, donated $45,000 to the Via Christi Foundation to fund the materials needed for the shields. The foundation then bought the shields from Spirit, after a few weeks of tweaking the design and ramping up production.
The shields were initially made with 3-D printers, a relatively slow process that doesn’t lend itself to mass production. Then Spirit set up its injection mold and teamed with Textron to cut the materials for the shields.
“Now, they are just pumping them out left and right,” said David Alexander, president of the Via Christi Foundation.
“Of course, just like you would expect out of one of our aircraft manufacturers, they have an assembly line set up that is extremely efficient,” he said.
Alexander said working with Spirit has made grappling with the pandemic less stressful for hospital workers who have to worry not just about treating patients but also not becoming infected themselves.
“When we got the first prototypes, we actually went to the nurses’ floor to the intensive care for those that would be treating COVID-19 patients and we said, ‘Hey, what do you think? Would you like to have this?’ And literally several of them actually teared up.
“It dawned on me, for the first time in almost 60 years on this earth,” Alexander said. “I always thought that being brave meant you’re not afraid of anything. I now know that being brave means you do your job, even when you’re afraid for yourself and your own family. And that’s why it touched them so deeply to get these shields.”
Alexander said the shields are exactly what the hospital needed and that’s he’s pleased with the final product.
“You would think that this was a company that did nothing but produce face shields. That’s how good they are,” he said.
Spirit’s first shipment of 1,000 shields arrived Friday. By the end of the week, 8,000 will be delivered.
Sean Black, vice president and chief engineer of research and technology at Spirit, said his team at Spirit was more than happy to help out.
“There was an incredible passion within our team,” Black said. “We have strong engineering and industrial skills; however, the challenge was really to leverage those skills and expertise as rapidly as we did.”
It all came together in a couple of weeks.
Black said Spirit first used its 3-D printers at its Oliver Street plant to make the shields while designing injection molds so it could produce thousands of the shields each week.
Around that time, Spirit teamed up with Textron Aviation to make the shields.
“They have some very specialized cutting technology, and they’re able to use that for the visor materials,” Black said.
Black said Wichita has a tight-knit aerospace community that was able to spring into action quickly to help the local healthcare providers.
“We all know each other and there was a very strong community,” Black said. “With that being said, it is quite unusual to be working together in the actual operational environment, so in that respect it is a very exciting and healthy environment. It’s quite unique.”
And the two aviation companies will continue making the shields after it finishes its order of 8,000 for Via Christi, Black said.
“We will continue to engage as there continues to be a demand in the local area and in Kansas,” Black said.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 3:34 PM.