John Deere, in collaboration with the UAW, the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, is producing protective face shields at John Deere Seeding Group in Moline, Illinois.
John Deere employees will initially produce 25,000 face shields to meet the immediate needs of health care workers in several of its U.S. manufacturing communities.
Materials and supplies are on order to produce an additional 200,000 face shields, according to John Deere. The company is using an open-source design from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the project and leveraging expertise, skills and innovation of its employee base.
“Our manufacturing and supply management teams, along with our production and maintenance employees, the UAW and our partners, have worked tirelessly to ensure we could lend our support and protect our health care workers during this crisis,” says John May, CEO of Deere & Co. “By working closely with the communities where our employees live and work, we can help support the needs we’ve identified close to home and, as the project expands, address additional, urgent needs across the country.”
John Deere Seeding Group employees are supporting the special project and utilizing extensive and robust safety measures adopted across the company to safeguard employees.
The production of protective face shields is one of several initiatives John Deere and its employees have executed in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Other efforts in the United States include PPE donations to health care facilities, the production of about 18,000 protective face shields for use by factory employees, and employee volunteerism efforts to sew cloth masks for community members along.
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