‘Necessity is the mother of all inventions!’ And this pandemic situation has made people invent several new ideas to sustain the impact of the nationwide lockdown that was implemented to curb the spread of deadly COVID-19.
One such person is Upkar Sharma – the Founder & CEO of ‘CREA’ WorldWide. At a time when several industries were forced to down the shutters, Upkar decided to use his company’s expertise to help front line warriors and medical professionals who are most vulnerable to the pandemic.
As the company was already into making bags, accessories, defence gears, it had all the necessary machinery and those were very easily adaptable to the medical industry. Within 12 days, ‘CREA’ had their first order; in 20 days they created four models, and in 35 days they had a catalogue of 11 overalls, as well as two types of face shields and two types of protective masks.
Healthwire spoke to Upkar Sharma and tried to find out how protective gear like Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), face shield, etc of CREA are different from other available products in the market and how it changed the life of frontline workers for good.
In a freewheeling interview, Upkar told us about how CREA’s DRDO Level 4 Certified and approved breathable yet hydrophobic (water-repelling) PPE kits are helping doctors to concentrate on work without worrying about their wellbeing. Here are excerpts from the interview.
Beginning Of PPE Manufacturing
“When the lockdown was announced, we had a very clear indication among ourselves at CREA that this is going to be a disaster economically. We largely cater to the retailing industry and the first thing that gets impacted is retail. Then we thought there’s nothing we will achieve by sitting and lamenting and it’s better to do something to help others. I called one of the directors of our company, Praveen, and told him that we could use our bag materials to make some face shields. The main aim was to make cheap but some good quality of protection kits. For 8-9 days we spent 16-18 hours researching on PPE, what kind of fabrics we should use and best practices being followed globally. The most important thing that came out was that PPE should protect but it also should be breathable.”
Raised The Bar
“The ICMR guidelines stated that it should meet ISO 16603 standard but that test covers only one aspect which is protection. There were no tests prescribed by the authority to check protection and breathability both. But it was decided between us that we will focus on the global standards and if we have to do something it will be done in the best possible way. As we were in manufacturing, we quickly found out various fabrics suited for the current situation and took clearance from DRDO from only those fabrics.”
Manufacturing Capacity Of CREA
“We have sold over 50,000 coveralls, over 50,000 face shields, we are in the process of supplying 200,000 isolation gowns. This is when we were mostly operating with around 30 per cent capacity. It’s only after June 8 that we started our factory with full capacity. Our installed capacity is to make around 5,000 sets. At present we are making isolation gowns as we don’t have any order for PPE kits. We are making 10,000 medical isolation gowns on a daily basis.”
Demand Has Increased
“The most disappointing thing is that doctors of our country are not aware of what kind of PPE kits should be used. In the past two months, PPE kits of very low quality were made available in the market and this helped us in getting an edge. Every PPE kit has three important roles – protection, comfort and breathability. Our protective kits fulfill all these requirements. Now, doctors and hospitals are reaching us and want to know more about our breathable kits.”
Affordable Price
“Good quality breathable gown cost around Rs 150 and a nonprotective gown in the medical supply chain cost just Rs 80-90. Our protective gear can cost anything around Rs 650-850 and this is not expensive.”
Emphasis On Make In India
“Indian MSME and SME are the most innovative sectors in the world but they don’t get any credit. 100 per cent of our raw material for our PPE kit is being developed in India. It is time for Indian consumers and the government to actually look toward the MSME and say thank you more than anything else.”
More Products In The Offing
“We are about to launch three more products in the next few months. Within six months we will like to compete with the best global companies and we are 100 per cent sure we can achieve this.”