We had an opportunity to check in with our Proxxi Contact customer, The ExOne Company, at the end of February. We wanted to ask Sarah Calabrese, the Environmental Health & Safety Coordinator North America at ExOne, how the deployment of the Proxxi Contact solution that she spearheaded was going. This EH&S Coordinator explained how she is protecting some of their most valuable on-site workers.

ExOne is an industrial 3D printer company headquartered outside of Pittsburgh PA. The company is the pioneer and global leader in binder jet 3D printing technology, which quickly transforms powder materials — including metals, ceramics, composites and sand — into precision parts, metalcasting molds and cores, and innovative tooling solutions. The company sells 3D printers and services.

The Global Director of Technology at ExOne Metals came to Sarah with a problem around the health and safety of their Engineering Team. The company, like most over the years, had deployed an open concept workspace with no walls, offices, or barriers between workers. When COVID-19 hit, 60% of their workforce moved to working at home. However, the business critical Engineering Team needed to be at the office, and they needed to be protected.

Sarah knew that people often forgot how far 6 feet is, and during the rush of the day could get too close to each other. She started researching devices that could help with Social Distance Reminders and Contact Tracing. She wanted to employ technology that could provide friendly reminders, but that did not have GPS or other location tracking features that she knew her workers would object to.

After reviewing several solutions, Sarah decided on Proxxi Contact, as it was very affordable, easy to set up, and deployment would only take one day. The wristbands were also well received by her team due to their sleek design. Adoption of the Contact Wristband has been high, and the team understands that their location is not being tracked, making them feel more comfortable with using the technology.

Since the deployment of Proxxi, ExOne has had one positive test of a worker at the facility. Within minutes Sarah was able to isolate the single worker that was at risk due to proximity to the infected worker as per CDC Guidelines. With the digital contact tracing technology, Sarah did not need to perform any interviews, manual contact tracing, or guesswork. This fast resolution to a problem that could have potentially removed some of the company's most valuable on-site workers has led to a recognition that Sarah made an impactful decision when choosing Proxxi Contact.

Sarah’s overall COVID-19 Plan involves the use of other tools as well. In order to ensure they are taking all possible precautions, ExOne operates daily temperature checks at the front door and they use the Thermal Guard Visitor Management System in conjunction with Proxxi Contact. The procedures and planning have worked well and the tools chosen by Sarah have performed as expected to provide ExOne with business continuity and worker comfort. Both the business and the employees feel safe and protected as they continue to serve their customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.