The Response of the Hellenic 3D-Printing Community over the COVID-19 Pandemics: The Success Story of the Hellenic Mediterranean University

*Corresponding author: Markos Petousis, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Estavromenos, 71410, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.To Cite This Article: Markos Petousis. The Response of the Hellenic 3D-Printing Community over the COVID-19 Pandemics: The Success Story of the Hellenic Mediterranean University. 2020 9(3). AJBSR.MS.ID.001386. DOI: 10.34297/AJBSR.2020.09.001386. Received: June 08, 2020; Published: June 25, 2020


Introduction
At the end of 2019 in China, Wuhan's authorities try to treat enough cases of pneumonia of an unknown case [1]. At the beginning of 2020 authorities will announce the existence of a new virus called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [2] or as most known Corona virus, which is an extremely infectious respiratory virus [3]. In March 2020, it is already globally accepted and realized that COVID-19 disease outbreak with extreme rates of transmission is a pandemic that humanity has to come up with. Later this month, the world's Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) availability runs a large deficit causing the personnel in hospitals to work without any protection against the airborne virus [4]. In some countries the spread of the disease is so vast that it causes severe problems in the operation of hospitals due to lack of available medical devices for the patient treatment, etc. Italy is one example of these countries that faced a war scene in hospitals. It is also the country, in which Additive Manufacturing (AM) was firstly employed in the COVID-19 fight.
Shortages in hospitals regarding respiratory valves used in ventilators led a local hospital to call for help [5]. Respiratory valves are a consumable part of the ventilators used in hospitals, in order to help patients, mainly from respiratory diseases, to breath normally [6]. The call for help drives a local company specialized in 2020, another company with long experience in AM implements a design of a new face shield, in order to fight the COVID-19 spread.
In this case, the face shield's design is uploaded online and used as an open-source design, under non-commercial use copyrights [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. This design is available to be manufactured with the use of a common and low-cost 3D printer at any place in the world.
The company also provides instructions about how it should be manufactured and sterilized.
At the beginning of the 3D printing project as a unique solution to manufacture medical devices and protecting equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic period, no tests or verifications are available, i.e. for the respiratory valves and face shield masks. The urgent needs that the supply chain couldn't cover in combination with the fast manufacturing time via 3D printing did not leave any time for the standard process one should follow to bring a new product into the market. Relatively, all well-established procedures to verify a product, such as the CE marking in Europe, etc. we're not followed before products were used by end users. After the respiratory valves and face shield masks projects gain publicity, many companies, universities, laboratories, and other organizations having additive manufacturing equipment, implemented different ideas to help the fight against COVID-19. In Figure 1 it can be seen that total deaths and infection cases (a) as well as total deaths and infection cases per day (b) at global level increased exponentially during March, causing enough problems in the society.

An efficacious and vigorous action has been taken in Greece,
following some individual's idea to help sanitary personnel. The project started through a Facebook Group called "Hellas COVID-19 3D Printed Supplies" [15]. This is highly connected with the Greek success story in general regarding the COVID-19 deaths in country.
Hellas COVID-19 3D Printed Supplies: The project started from two persons, one coming from the "hobbyist" part and one coming from the professional part of AM in Greece. The whole project started first by acknowledging the idea to the Hellenic Ministry of Health (MOH). Due to the upcoming pandemic, a fast response from all parts involved in the project was needed. Therefore, the organizers tried to shorten periods of fundamental moves, like gathering volunteers, or evaluation of the product from MOH's officers.
While the evaluation process was taking place, organizers reached through Facebook's Group over 2,000 volunteers for the project.
The first product that took the "green light" for production with AM, was the Prusa Face Shield Design ( Figure 2). The face shield had to be manufactured and was manufactured with biocompatible materials, according to the specs set by the Hellenic MOH.
Additive manufacturing professionals, hobbyists and other professionals and volunteers from different sectors, i.e. transportation, dentists etc. were amongst the 2,000 volunteers.
The goal needed to be achieved was the enormous 3D printing manufacturing process of 15,000 pieces. In order to achieve such production numbers, there is not only need of 3D Printers, raw materials and volunteers, but also a well-organized "machine" that provides raw materials to users, transports ready parts to assembly lines, one or more assembly lines and the final transportation to MOH's main office, in order to further forward final products to final users (public health system of the country). From this wide network, organizers finally achieved to manufacture face shields by using over 350 3D printers in the whole country. A fine-tuned transportation network had been established in order to forward filament to 3D printers throughout Greece and gathering back the parts of the face shield. Clear sheets, elastic bands and packaging materials were gathered to the lab of one of two organizers. In this central lab, other volunteers were packaging all parts and then ready products were being forwarded to the MOH's main office.
From the scope of numbers after approval of the manufacturing procedure, the community achieved to deliver the first 500 pieces within only 4 days. In the following days, the production level has achieved a high production rate, while volunteers managed to  The sponsorships were in a form of providing equipment to the University, in order to update its 3D printing infrastructure. Apart from these sponsorships, local initiatives provided 3D printing material (filament), for the construction of the masks, which were then donated to the island of Crete public health system.

General Discussion
Additive Manufacturing has so far been treated as a rapid prototyping method and never has been seriously discussed as a massive production technology. COVID-19 situation unleashed AM mass production potential. A new way of manufacturing was realised locally, from communities ranging from professionals to Universities and up to 3D Printing enthusiasts. 3D Printing covered a large deficit in market during this period. Moreover, this happened in a very crucial moment for humanity. In Greece a wellorganized "machine" worked properly and as shown in Figure 3 not many days after the infections started to increase at a high rate, Greek 3D Printing community produced enough pieces in order to sufficiently cover needs in PPE.
Additionally, the instant response and efficiency of the

Funding
This research received no external funding.