One of Australia’s largest suppliers of plastic sheeting for the car industry has pivoted to produce face shields to ensure the nation has enough personal protective equipment for frontline workers.

EGR usually produces 1000s of tonnes of plastic sheeting each year, but with the car industry shutdown, the manufacturer saw the opportunity to shift gears and produce resources for the PPE industry instead.

With the assistance of their long term partner, camera and printing company, Konica Minolta, EGR has retooled it’s factory and is utilising 3D printing to continue as a viable business.

John Bartley, EGR group general manager said EGR is innovative company by nature.

“[We] can recognise new opportunities and the need to adapt to market conditions. For an Australian manufacturer, this speed and agility is critical to survival. We saw the opportunity to deploy EGR’s resources to address a critical need for PPE while keeping our people employed and our factory open.”

EGR’s decision to pivot the business means the factory has remained viable and its 800-strong staff remain employed.

Bartley acknowledges the pivot was only possible thanks to the support of  3D printing experts Konica Minolta, whose equipment allowed them to rapidly-produce a prototype.

“The definition of the prototype produced by the Markforged X7 made it the right fit for this project,”  says Bartley.

“It produced a prototype that represented the end product, which assisted with our overall speed to market. Having Konica Minolta as an innovation partner was extremely important and the commitment the team showed in getting this off the ground was second to none.”

Bartley says throughout the process EGR has seen the benefits that commercial-grade 3D printing can have on a business’s ability to explore new options for the market.

“We are definitely keen to continue down the PPE route into the future as well as explore other potential use cases.

“The lesson here is that Australian manufacturers need to be adaptable, diverse and able to produce materials quickly and easily with less resources. 3D printing definitely has a critical role to play in reducing manufacturing costs and speeding up time-to-market,” Bartley concludes.

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