Leamington engineers create 30 jobs as visor production set to hit one million a week

Staff at Tecman Advanced Material Engineering, in Berrington Road, had planned to create 1,000 visors a week for local NHS Trusts to help protect staff caring for patients with coronavirus from becoming infected themselves.

But new investment at the company, which has 20 staff, will enable it to increase that production to one million visors each week and will mean the creation of a further 30 jobs.

Kevin Porter, managing director, said: “We began manufacture this week after fast-tracking the development of the face shield.

“We have manufactured nearly 100,000 and dispatched more than 75,000 with orders scheduled for the next six months.

“Furthermore, new investment in automation will increase our manufacturing capacity to more than one million per week.”

With the impact of the coronavirus lockdown nationally affecting 60 per cent of the firm’s usual production, directors agreed its spare capacity should be used to support the healthcare sector.

Mr Porter said: “We quickly identified face shields as being the most effective way for Tecman to support demand.

“To accommodate this we have restructured our production and operations departments to run 24 hours a day, employing new staff, increasing storage space, and implementing new workstations.

“We are investing in automation equipment to streamline our processes, increase production volumes and automate packing to give us the capacity to manufacture over 1,000,000 finished visors per week.

“The new investment, which substantially increases our manufacturing capacity, helps with both the current PPE shortage and our long-term commitment to becoming a global centre of excellence in the ongoing development and manufacture of face and eye protection.”

Mr Porter said: “This is a time for businesses to pull together to protect our healthcare workers and help to slow the spread of infection.

“We are focused on producing an effective product with uncompromised safety. Our protective face shields are manufactured to the required CE standards and we’re proud to be supporting our NHS in this time of need.”

Mr Porter added: “We have promised to donate more than 1,000 CE-certified visors a week as part of the national #PPE4NHS campaign, which is driving donations of equipment from businesses into their local NHS trusts.

“Our response will help to protect thousands of vulnerable healthcare workers.”

He said the new lightweight, disposable face shield had been developed to provide maximum protection and long-term comfort.

Mr Porter said: “Having been through rigorous testing, the visors will be available from mid-April, and manufactured under the brand Tecman Advanced Healthcare Products.”

The healthcare initiative comes as Tecman celebrates its 25th anniversary having grown from three members of staff to a team of more than 20 people.