2KR Designs Limited is a joint venture between the owners of three complementary Maltese companies with over 30 years’ experience in the polymer/plastic manufacturing industry.

With a shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE) products in the marketplace, Kevin Busuttil of K-Engineering, Ing. Robert Borg of RAPCO Limited and Kenneth Caruana of Thermoplastics Limited got together in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak to collaborate and think outside the box in order to help out in the fight against the global pandemic.

Around mid-March, a close collaboration started between 2KR Designs and several infection control specialists and health practitioners. It was immediately very apparent that the greatest threats were the potential wipe-out of the frontline medics and the collapse of the health system, unless all front liners were urgently protected through adequate and effective PPE. Adversely, as the virus propagated across Europe and the other continents worldwide, the demand for PPE was sky-rocketing, resulting in significant shortages, delays and price-bidding wars. The three collaborating companies therefore re-prioritised their normal business activities in order to fully focus and embark on a project to locally produce a series of PPE products.

The first PPE product produced in the range – the Visor-S – is a professional, lightweight and low cost full-face shield. It took the team two days to design and two days to build and develop a prototype. The first, fully functional model was demonstrated to the relevant stakeholders via e-mail on Sunday 22nd March. Subsequently, it was submitted and approved on Monday 23rd March. The design and build was so exceptional, and the price so competitive that the local authorities immediately raised an order for 100,000 units, with deliveries starting as early as 6th April.

In the interim, the team allocated resources to design and build mould tools and automation equipment and also to procure compliant plastic resins, instruction leaflets and packaging material. The daily production target was initially set at 4,000 units and is currently running at over 75,000 units per day.