BAE Systems in Rochester ramps up PPE manufacturing

More than 45,000 face shields have already been delivered with the support of employees across the UK and its supply chain, including 4,000 units to NHS and social care settings across Kent and Medway.

BAE expects to donate more than 150,000 in total over the coming weeks.

The team at Rochester, which usually produces sophisticated electronic systems for military and commercial platforms, has developed a new face shield design, helping to bolster the company’s efforts to support the nation’s healthcare workers.

Production started this week at the Rochester site on an initial 3,000 face shields, with up to 500 face shields to be produced at the site each week over the next six weeks.

“The NHS and healthcare workers across the UK continue to make the nation proud and we wanted to play our part in helping those on the frontline,” said John Russell, deputy director for engineering at Electronic Systems Rochester. “Our team of engineers created a new design of face shield that could be produced in high numbers using our smaller 3D printers in less than a week which is a huge achievement. We’ve now started production and the first of the new shields produced at Rochester will be making their way to our amazing NHS staff this week.”

BAE’s industrial-scale 3D printers in its air and maritime sectors are already producing face shields and we’re sourcing tens of thousands of face shields from our supply chain.

As the Electronic Systems site in Rochester does not use large industrial scale 3D printers, a new design was created which reduces the number of components needed and means the company’s smaller 3D printers can produce face shields more quickly than existing designs.

The new design has two 3D printed clips, with other components made from Polycarbonate and produced using laser cutting tools on site. It was created by one of the team’s undergraduates Elliot Farrell who was mentored by chief engineer Martyn Ingleton. The product has been named the Farrell shield in recognition of his efforts.

“Although we don’t have the large scale production abilities of some of our colleagues I didn’t want that to hold back our efforts to support the NHS,” said Elliot Farrell, industrial placement mechanical engineer. “To have the support of the whole BAE Systems team and the NHS to get the new face shield completed and onto the frontline so quickly has been an amazing effort by everyone involved.”

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