Deere shifts production to face shields
Illinois Soybean Assn., Chicago Park District join to make hand sanitizer, as does UIUC lab
A John Deere worker wears a face shield with clips attached to the brim of his baseball cap, made with a 3-D printer. (Deere.com)
By Ted Cox
President Trump might be resistant to using the Defense Production Act to take the offensive against the spread of COVID-19, but Illinois farmers and farm machinery firms don’t need to be told what to do.
John Deere is shifting a Moline seeding factory to manufacturer face shields for hospital workers instead. Deere is also designing clips for the shields to be attached to baseball caps, clips that can be created on a 3-D printer.
The Illinois Soybean Association is joining with the Chicago Park District to make hand sanitizer, in part from biodiesel byproducts. And a bioproduct lab at the state’s flagship University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is also shifting production to hand sanitizer.
The John Deere Seeding Group in Moline started production of the see-through face shields last week, according to FarmWeekNow.com. The factory previously specialized in planting equipment.
Deere Chief Executive Officer John May told FarmWeekNow: “Our manufacturing and supply management teams, along with our production and maintenance employees, the (United Auto Workers), and our partners have worked tirelessly to ensure we could lend our support and protect our health-care workers during this crisis.”
The shields are a critical piece of personal protective equipment, or PPE, for hospital workers dealing with COVID-19 patients. Deere planned to make 25,000 face shields in the initial production batch, but according to the story it was also gathering supplies to make an additional 200,000.
The face shields will be distributed through 16 Deere factories in eight states.
But Deere designers also came up with a method of attaching the shields to a standard ball cap, using a set of clips that can be created on a 3-D printer. According to Deere: “The idea is to manufacture clips that will affix a protective face shield to a standard ball cap, the kind of ball cap that many of our factories use with a bump-cap insert as part of an employee’s PPE.” It also made the design available for download on its website.
The Chicago Park District began production last week of its own hand sanitizer, aided by the Illinois Soybean Association. According to a Park District news release, it’s making 600 gallons of alcohol-based hand sanitizer, under guidelines endorsed by the World Health Organization calling for antiseptic hand rub to contain isopropyl alcohol, glycerin, hydrogen peroxide, and purified water. “Glycerin is the main byproduct derived from the production of biodiesel and is made from soybeans grown in Illinois,” according to the release.
The hand sanitizer is intended for district staff, as well as local police and firefighters. “The safety of our employees is paramount,” said Superintendent Michael Kelly in a statement. “Due to the sweeping spread of the novel coronavirus, there is a global shortage of vital sanitation products. This unprecedented time calls for innovative solutions. Rather than wait indefinitely for products to become available, risking the safety of our workforce and the public, we decided to produce it ourselves.”
The Illinois Soybean Association is providing packaging in addition to raw materials. “Illinois soybean producers are proud to partner with the Chicago Park District to alleviate stress on needed resources like sanitizer during this pandemic,” said ISA CEO John Lumpe. “We’re neighbors helping neighbors because, at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”
The University of Illinois also shifted a lab to produce hand sanitizer for the central Illinois area surrounding Urbana-Champaign. “Our main goal is to serve those on the front lines, fire, police, and hospitals,” Brian Jacobson, pilot plant operations assistant director at the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory, told FarmWeekNow.
According to the story, Jacobson feels the “hand-sanitizer market could potentially be a niche market for fuel-ethanol plants during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially given relaxed guidelines by the Food and Drug Administration and Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.”
Jacobson told FarmWeekNow that “plants producing the grade of ethanol traditionally used in sanitizers are working at full capacity while other ethanol plants are experiencing decreased demand. A fuel-ethanol plant could handle the conversion internally.”
It’s not expected to replace fuel production permanently, because there’s not the same profit margin, but in the short term it serves the needs of those confronting the pandemic on a daily basis. As it is, the lab is making 300 gallons of hand sanitizer a day, packaged in 5-gallon jugs, and as of the middle of last week it had produced 1,200 gallons on the way to 3,000 over the next few weeks.
“It’s amazing how everyone is stepping up to the plate. No one envisioned this when we got the IBRL funding released from the government,” said state Sen. Chapin Rose, of Mahomet. “The U of I is thinking outside of the box and trying to protect first responders.”