Nissan has become the latest company to use its manufacturing expertise to help make protective aprons for the NHS workers.
A team of volunteers at the firm’s Sunderland plant took just eight days to design and build a process to manufacture the plastic aprons, with the operation set up at plant’s skills academy, which is normally run by Gateshead College.
The plant is able to product 18,000 aprons a week with plans to increase this to more than 70,000.
The Nissan workers acted following a request from the Royal College of Nursing, with help from the Unite union, which urged manufacturers to use spare capacity to help meet the unprecedented demand for PPE.
Nissan production director Adam Pennick said: “We are proud to support our healthcare workers wherever we can during this crisis.
“The team at the plant have done an excellent job in creating a production process in such a short space of time. It really highlights the skill and dedication we have in our team at Sunderland plant.”
Using technical specifications issued by the Government, the team have set up a manual process to make non-sterile grade aprons out of tear resistant polythene.
Production started this week and the plant already has 47,000 orders from local NHS trusts.
Nissan also has a team of logistics workers who are sorting and distributing protective visors made by volunteers so that can be easily assembled and used by the NHS.
