‘Help our health-care heroes’: Regina company to make face shields

With the demand for personal protective equipment at an all-time high around the world, Sleek Signs is hoping to do what it can to protect health-care workers and the public.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries around the world to either find the equipment or have local companies begin manufacturing it.

In Regina, Sleek Signs has pivoted from its large-scale printing operation and will be creating face shields.

“The face (shield) is meant to be a second barrier, so we’re not proposing it to be a replacement for your typical PPE; it’s just an added protection,” said Sleek Signs CEO and president Carl Weger.

“We’re at a point where it’s not necessarily a medical device — the respirators and masks are still a valuable component to (health-care workers’) safety — but this does keep the particulate from actually touching their face.”

The company, which normally helps print off the advertisements you see on billboards, buses and other vehicles, switched gears and went from an idea to the development of a prototype to producing them in a span of three days.

“We’re just trying to fill a need and try to keep our 30-plus employees employed,” Weger said.

Weger said the biggest challenge the company has been facing is trying to fill the immense need and finding the proper material for the face shields.

“The material in face shields is essentially evaporating so we’ve taken a lot of effort to find the material to source it here locally and help our health-care heroes,” he said.

Weger said as of now, the company has made more than 3,000 face shields but is hoping to get production up to whatever the need is. Weger said Sleek Signs could possibly make up to 5,000 face shields in a 24-hour span.

He said ideally the company would partner with other companies that have the same sort of tools to help meet the need.

“Hopefully we would get it up to 200,000-plus a week,” he said, “but at the same time, hopefully we don’t actually need that many.”

Weger said the Saskatchewan Health Authority has ordered a set of prototypes for testing and to ensure the shield is the type of equipment that will help during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s still some questions about the prototyping and the sizing as far as the health district and going through the Class 1 certification process,” Weger said. “We’re hoping to fill a regional need instead of just a local need.”