Burloak Technologies secures NGen funding to produce face shields

Additive manufacturer Burloak Technologies is now among the companies producing face shields that will be used by frontline medical and healthcare workers in the fight against COVID-19.

This personal protective equipment was designed and tested in collaboration with Hamilton Health Sciences and Mohawk College.

Production has begun and will ramp up to volumes of approximately 10,000 units per week.

The project was funded by Next Generation Manufacturing Canada, the Canadian government’s advanced manufacturing supercluster, as part of its call for solutions to help fight the pandemic.

“Additive manufacturing is an ideal process to scale any design to commercial production in the shortest time possible, and applying our capabilities in this battle is the right thing to do,” says Colin Osborne, president and CEO of Samuel, Son & Co., Limited, the parent company of Burloak Technologies.

“NGen played a valuable role in the rapid response to get this project underway. Without this funding, it would not have been possible to achieve the same scale in this accelerated timeframe.”

“Working together in new and innovative ways will help to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in our region, our province and across Canada,” says John Laughlin, CTO, Next Generation Manufacturing Canada. “This project is an example of how we can succeed when we put the interests of the community first.”

Mohawk College will use the resources at its School of Health and other organizations to distribute these face shields locally and across Canada.