Manufacturers quickly pivot to medical supplies
City anesthesiologist praises creativity of local response to needs in virus fight
Some Montreal businesses are reinventing themselves at breakneck speed in a bid to produce sorely needed protective equipment for medical workers and help fight the COVID -19 pandemic.
AON3D, a maker of three-dimensional industrial printers with about 40 employees, has temporarily shelved its regular line of business to tackle the production of face shields. It joins a booming field that includes Tristan, the family-owned clothing retailer and manufacturer that just converted one of its Eastern Townships plants to make plastic visors.
“This has been a whirlwind two weeks,” Nicholas Nadeau, head of engineering at AON3D, said Friday in a telephone interview. “First we had to learn to become a virtual company, and now we’ve pivoted the company into a medical equipment manufacturer.”
Larger companies have also jumped into the fray, with flight simulator maker CAE Inc. saying it’s aiming to mass produce a newly created ventilator within three months.
Tristan president Lili Fortin says she began looking into the idea of making protective equipment after getting tipped off by a friend who works in health care on March 21.
Within 48 hours, Fortin had tasked her engineers with designing a prototype to see if the company ’s machines could cut plastic, while reaching out to potential suppliers to gauge their interest. Health Canada approved the company’s application the following weekend, and production began in earnest March 30.
“Basically, we turned our operations around in a week,” Fortin said Friday in a phone interview. “Every day, it feels like I’m doing a week’s worth of work.”
Though it shut its retail stores due to the pandemic, temporarily laying off more than 500 people, Tristan had a key asset working in its favour — a manufacturing facility in Cookshire that had remained open because it had been deemed an essential service. Among other customers, the 100-employee plant makes clothing for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Sûreté du Québec.
“Speed is of the essence,” Fortin said. “Quebec’s health care needs are immense, and many companies are trying to move into the space. All the while, raw materials are getting harder to find.”
Tristan now produces about 1,400 visors a day, Fortin said, delivering to hospitals in Montreal and as far afield as Rimouski. And with fresh investments in machinery, Fortin predicts daily output will soon climb to as many as 5,000 units.
Tristan is also considering other types of medical equipment. A company facility in Farnham could be used for that purpose, Fortin said.
“This crisis is going to open a lot of eyes on the importance of producing locally,” she said.
Things are moving just as fast at AON3D, which is drawing up plans to make as many as 5,000 face shields daily. The company is working to secure Health Canada approval as a medical device manufacturer — a process that could require up to one month, Nadeau said.
AON3D can’t sell the visors without a Health Canada licence, so in the meantime, it’s donating them to institutions such as the Montreal General Hospital. AON3D has committed more than $20,000 to producing face shields and until revenue starts coming in, Nadeau says, the company is being financed by a group of private donors.
Anesthesiologist Dr. Avinash Sinha is part of a team at the Montreal General that contacted AON3D about making protective equipment.
“It was evident to me there was not enough of what we needed, and that we needed to source locally,” Sinha said Friday. “We’re dealing in days and weeks, not months and years. An entrepreneurial company is where you can get this kind of response.”
Seeing companies adapting their plants and donating equipment is “a testament to the society that we have here,” Sinha added. “Coronavirus is going to be with us for some months, so we will all need to adjust the way we interact with our health system.”
Basically, we turned our operations around in a week. Every day, it feels like I’m doing a week’s worth of work.