Image credit: Tero Suutari.
In these turbulent times, the demand for personal protection equipment, so called PPEs, is ever increasing. Having already set up mass production of face protecting visors over the past month, Screentec is expanding its PPE product catalogue to include FFP3 masks.
In March, Screentec’s Chief Technology Officier, Mikko Paakkolanvaara, got the idea to start producing the Screentec V3 Visor after seeing that there was a great shortage of domestic PPE in Finland. In just a few weeks time Screentec has managed to set up a mass production of these devices and CE mark certification is well underway. Weekly production volumes of the Visor V3 are already in excess of 30 000 units per week and production speed is being ramped-up constantly.
Sadly, Visors aren’t the only piece of PPE in short supply, new measures both in Finland and the rest of the EU mean that there is an unprecedented need for FFP3 masks. These masks protect the user from a minimum of 99% of particles, with a leakage of 2% or less under EU standards. This means they are some of the best pieces of protective gear available to prevent infections from happening. Urgent action is needed to make sure that enough FFP3 masks are available to both healthcare professionals and other people in the near future.
To this end, Screentec has recently struck a deal with 5 university hospitals across Finland to set up a production line for almost six million FFP3 masks. Production of the masks is scheduled to start in June 2020. It will involve significant investments in production equipment and logistics, but Screentec’s CEO Mr. Antti Tauriainen, is confident that the company is able to meet this new challenge: ” With the Visor V3 production, we were able to show that our company is able to quickly set up production lines and deliver on promises. This gave the hospitals the confidence to choose us as their partner for this task.”
Despite the increase in activity at the company, Antti is keeping a level head in this situation: ” The Visor V3 production line enabled us to hire between 18-26 new people, which is a significant increase for us. We would like to keep these people on in the future as well, so we are taking steps to ensure that their employment is sustainable. Our company has been around for over 30 years and we always keep the long run in mind.”
When asked about continued support for the new PPE products, Antti mentioned that Screentec intends to keep them as a permanent part of the company’s product portfolio. Customers can expect to be able to purchase them for years to come.
