Brandauer engineer Alex Walton has worked on the manKIND visor

The Manufacturing Assembly Network (MAN), which comprises eight sub-contract specialists and an engineering design agency, is celebrating a major milestone by securing CE certification for its newly developed recyclable visor to be used in the ongoing fight against Covid-19.

The collective has recently supplied its 50,000th manKIND visor and is now looking to double this figure over the next three months, supplying NHS hospitals, healthcare facilities, charities and a host of commercial organisations that have chosen to adopt this form of protection against the virus, benefitting from the easy-to-assemble approach, comfortable fit and the ability to clean and re-use them time and time again.

The CE certification means the visor has been independently clinically tested and approved and is now eligible to be part of the Medilink Midlands ‘Big Ask’ campaign to use West Midlands firms to meet national PPE shortages.

Brandauer CEO Rowan Crozier and lead on the project, said: “Like a lot of manufacturers we wanted to do something to help our frontline staff, so MAN pooled our design, engineering and assembly expertise into creating the manKIND visor.

“Over £30,000 was spent on the tooling, prototyping and manufacture and the first 20,000 were donated to local hospitals, care homes, voluntary organisations and to key workers. After that we have been selling them in bulk, business-to-business on trade account or direct to the consumer via the Brandauer eBay shop and we have received global interest.”

He continued: “The CE certification is a big moment for us. We had already got the visors clinically tested, but this stamp of approval is crucial when working directly with some of the biggest companies in the world, not to mention governments around the world.

“We can supply 1 to 5,000-off at a time, which means it is very flexible for smaller companies and charities. One of our largest purchases was from Make UK, which is using the visors to protect apprentices studying at its dedicated academy in Birmingham.”

All nine MAN companies were involved in the project, with Grove Design producing a working prototype from scratch and Barkley Plastics using its toolmaking and moulding expertise to create the headband that is critical to the success of the product.

The visor is described as lightweight, easy to assemble with a push clip feature, suitable for repeated use, easy to clean (the headband can even be put in a dishwasher), and includes a full peak for better protection.

Comfort was also a priority and this is reflected in the inclusion of a ‘stretch’ headband that removes the need for a foam band and elasticated straps. Importantly, the user also has space to wear a face mask underneath it and the visor fits a variety of head sizes, making it suitable for adults and children.

This, coupled with it fitting neatly into a standard envelope size, means it is optimised for delivery to both large organisations in bulk or directly to the consumer via e-commerce site eBay.

Mr Crozier concluded: “The manKIND visor is part of a wider Brandauer approach to supplying crucial PPE, including manufacturing 70 million nose clips a year for medical face masks used world-wide.

“We have even successfully secured Innovate UK funding to come up with our own nose clip design and flexible tooling that will support increasing PPE demand and reshoring activities that will generate revenue for UK manufacturing.”

For further information, please visit www.mankindvisor.co.uk or follow Manufacturing Assembly Network on LinkedIn.