COVID-19 CRISIS: DHL SUPPORTS CARE WORKERS: 100, 000 “VISIÈRES DE L’ESPOIR” VISORS DELIVERED TO 600 MEDICAL FACILITIES IN FRANCE

DHL joins the operation “Les Visières de l’Espoir” to enable the free distribution of 100,000 protection visors (around 5,000 every day) to 600 medical facilities in France.

This operation was the result of a voluntary support initiative bringing together more than 40 partners (SMEs, industry flagship and major brands). This “Made in France” corporate movement undertaken on a large scale, forms part of the initiative launched by 3Dnatives, the leading media of 3D print. It aims at providing the expertise of SMEs and major groups for free to protect care workers. It was an obvious choice for DHL to team up with this collective to manage the entire transport component of the operation in collaboration with its historic partners, Renault Group and Decathlon.

The initiative entails the upstream involvement of DHL Freight’s teams in transporting the components required for the assembly of face protection masks from the various volunteer production sites in France. Further downstream, the DHL Express teams pick up the baton, delivering the visors to their final recipients – 600 French hospitals, located mainly in the Île-de-France, Nord and Grand Est regions.

Philippe Prétat, CEO of DHL Express France, explains: “We are very proud to be using our domestic express network to contribute to this huge joint operation on behalf of the ‘Visières de l’Espoir’ initiative. We stepped forward immediately when Renault Group – DHL’s long-standing international partner, both as a customer and a supplier – contacted us with a request to provide free-of-charge transport services for this fantastic operation. Our employees have enthusiastically embraced the idea of putting their skills to use helping care workers. The medical sector is one that we at DHL Express know well and are used to working with, including cases of extreme urgency. We have been making regular deliveries of protective equipment to care workers since the beginning of the crisis. Consequently, getting involved in the ‘Visières de l’Espoir’ programme was a natural choice. It is a wonderful initiative, and I salute all our employees who, through their remarkable efforts, have enabled us to deliver results on the ground.”

Claude Brigand, CEO Western Europe DHL Freight and Managing DHL Freight France, comments: “We are delighted to be able to put our logistics expertise to use in supporting this important project. This is a situation which touches us all – and wherever we are able to provide our support and business expertise, we are proud and happy to do so, in accordance with the Deutsche Post DHL group’s goal: ‘Connecting people. Improving lives.’”

DHL on the front line for the medical sector

“Les Visières de l’Espoir” is the result of the committed efforts of companies located throughout France, which will now be linked thanks to DHL. Since the project began, at the beginning of the lockdown, Decathlon has carried out panes laser cutting with several partners (Techshop, Hall 32 and Carrafont) and 3D prints of thousands of visor frames delivered by DHL.

Over the next 6 weeks, DHL’s teams will be mobilised to enable the visor frames produced in the Oise (Faurecia in Meru), Rhône (Allizé Plasturgie and A3D l’atelier numérique (the Digital Workshop) in Lyon) and Isère (Schneider Electric in Grenoble) departments to join up with the frames created in Guyancourt (Yvelines) by Renault’s technocentre. All these items will be packed on site into boxes brought in by DHL Freight from the Seine-Maritime and Oise departments (DS Smith in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray and in Saint Just En Chaussé). DHL Freight lorries will take to the road with these precious boxes filled with visor frames, travelling to the Docaposte site in Buc (Yvelines), which will be responsible for making up the parcels using the components just supplied by the DHL teams: transparent sheets from the Ain department (supply and cutting by Isoprod in Balan) and elastic straps from Decathlon site in Lille (Nord). The final parcels, containing the face protection masks, will then be ready for dispatch to the 600 hospitals located in the Île-de-France, Nord and Grand Est regions. The visors will be delivered to the hospitals in record time, the day after their collection by DHL Express.

For more information: http://lesvisieresdelespoir.com/