Proton delivered 8,000 face shields to medical frontliners and is able to produce up to 3,000 units per day.
Proton has delivered its first 8,000 face shields to medical frontliners to hospitals in Kelantan followed by other East coasts states. With the MCO in place since 18 March, the Shah Alam plant is seeing activity once again as staff members return to produce the face shields.
The face shields are designed and produced in-house, where the process began with designing and testing prototypes as well as receiving feedback from end-users to ensure the final product met their needs. Concurrently, the project team had to plan for a production line that was both safe and efficient to meet with Covid-19 health protocols.
Picked from a pool of volunteers, 50 staff members work on an assembly line to measure and cut various parts required to assemble the face shields. Proton says that the team is able to assemble up to 3,000 units in a single day, and is expected to take approximately 20 days to make 60,000 units Proton has committed to deliver.
The number of staff volunteering their services was overwhelming, despite [the] inherent risks involved in leaving home and coming to work. Therefore, we have taken steps to ensure everybody is kept safe by providing PPEs and maintaining a minimum distance between each work station to maintain social distancing.
Dato’ Radzaif Mohamed, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Proton.
Proton has received contributions from its vendor community. Pos Logistics Sdn Bhd, one of the biggest logistics service providers in Malaysia, has contributed over 2,000 large carton boxes that will be used to pack and transport the face shields.
Automotive component supplier, HICOM-Teck See Manufacturing Malaysia Sdn Bhd, is another vendor supporting Proton’s initiative. They have contributed 1,500kg of polypropylene – one of the main ingredients used in making a car bumper – which will be used to produce the frame of the face shields.
The original design for the face shield was contributed by Universiti Teknologi MARA (UITM). While the designers at Proton Design then developed and refined the frame design based on feedback from end-users, and also added the slogan “STAY STRONG! We will get through this!”
At the same time, PROTON also reached out to our vendor community to get them involved and the response has been heart-warming. Malaysia’s automotive sector has the capability and desire to contribute to the nation’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and hopefully, we can do more in the coming weeks and months to help break the chain of infection,
Dato’ Radzaif Mohamed, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of PROTON.
Written and Edited by:
Breena Au
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