ILC Dover is delivering products that protect healthcare providers from infectious disease, enable pharmaceutical customers to deliver critical drugs, and enhance national security.
The company employs more than 600 and has a plant and headquarters in Frederica.
“Our staff at ILC Dover is doing everything they can to help healthcare workers do their job effectively and safely,” said CEO Fran DiNuzzo. “Personal protection has been an ILC Dover watchword for more than 70 years. What has changed is the demand for the products. We are ramping up personal protective equipment (PPE) production to over 30 times what it was last year. The ILC Dover team has stepped up to this challenge with a determination and spirit that is synonymous with our culture.”
LC Dover determined its respirator hood supply would not allow them to meet the demands of the healthcare market.
The company’s research and development team designed a new powered airpurifying respirator (PAPR) hood for workers on the frontline of the pandemic.
Doug Durney, PPE product line director at ILC Dover, explained that the EZ BioHood is manufactured in-house at ILC Dover headquarters in Frederica, using existing materials and equipment. The entire process, from design to National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) approval, took only five weeks. The normal NIOSH approval process alone is several months.
“The safety of our employees is a top priority,” said DiNuzzo. “To protect our workforce, we made adjustments early and quickly. We continue to stay ahead of guidelines from the CDC, WHO and the State of Delaware in our procedures and process for protecting our employees.”
Starting in mid-February, ILC Dover took many preventive measures, including:
- Cleaned and sanitized all facilities intensely and frequently
- Provided PPE, including face masks, to all employees working in facilities
- Eliminated close contact between production teams
- Moved all non-essential team members to work at home
- Eliminated face-to-face meetings by utilizing virtual meeting technologies
- Suspended all non-essential company travel on a global basis
- Limited visitors at all sites
“The pandemic was yet another example of the ILC Dover team taking on a daunting challenge in an unprecedented time: maintaining an uninterrupted supply of high-quality products for all our customers while ramping up the production of essential healthcare PPE by 30 times during a global pandemic, said DiNuzzo. “It was more than a team goal. It is the team’s mission.”
