HEALTH & SAFETY
LATEST NEWS FROM SDI
SDI
SDi’s new hygiene solutions in demand as Boots,
M&S and Tesco race to protect staff and customers
Urgent demand to keep employees and
customers safe in the wake of Covid-19
has seen a Leicestershire point of sale and
visual merchandising display specialist
pivot its operations to deliver a range of
end-to-end hygiene products and services.
SDi, which employs 113 people at its stateof-the-facility
in Loughborough, has taken
just three weeks to develop protective face
guards for employees, pharmacy/checkout
screens and anti-bacterial wipes/sanitiser
hand stations.
There is an urgent demand to get these
made and in stores as soon as possible,
with 260,000 face guards manufactured
already, over 10,000 pharmacy and
checkout screens delivered to Boots and
M&S, whilst 1500 sanitiser hand stations are
currently in production for Tesco, Dixons
Carphone and other retail partners.
In a further step to protect people, an
official collaboration with Addmaster has
been signed that will give SDi the capability
to embed Biomaster technology into all
of its products, providing an additional
‘antimicrobial’ barrier to prevent bacteria
and viruses growing on surfaces.
“We have always been a close partner to
the retail sector and have been in constant
discussions with them during the pandemic.
The conversations were mainly focused
around protecting staff and customers
who are working and shopping, so we
immediately sprang into action to meet this
challenge,” explained Matt Evans, Retail
Sales Director of SDi.
“Our specialist designers and production
experts came up with a range of hygiene
products that could solve some of these
challenges, starting with protective face
guards and then quickly evolving into
pharmacy/check-out screens and sanitiser
hand stations.”
He continued: “Manufacturing lines were
adapted to ensure we could provide a
single-source solution from start to finish.
We’re talking volumes in the tens of
thousands, maybe eventually hundreds of
thousands.
“These products will help to protect people
and potentially save lives, so, put simply,
retailers couldn’t wait six weeks for them to
come from overseas suppliers.”
SDi, which is also in the process of
supplying 1.6million visors for the NHS, has
more than 40 years’ experience of creating,
making and fitting point of sale and visual
merchandising displays.
Its established single-source solution
covers the new hygiene range, with the
company able to design, manufacture and
install all of the new products, including vital
stocks of sanitiser that is in huge demand at
the moment.
Pivoting to this new approach has meant
that all production staff have been kept in
full-time work and, if volumes continue to
increase, a number of manufacturing jobs
could be created shortly.
Matt continued: “There is definitely a feeling
that more businesses are starting to make
plans about how they reopen when the
lockdown eventually eases and hygiene will
be at the forefront of their thoughts.”
He concluded: “The products we are
supplying to retailers can be used by
companies in all sectors, whether you are
manufacturing, operating trade counters or
working in contact centres.
“We are already having discussions with
some restaurants about making partition
dividers to help with social distancing and
speaking to firms about how they can
clearly communicate safety measures in the
workplace.”
For further information, please visit www.
sdidisplays.co.uk/ppe or follow @sdidisplays
on twitter and SDI-Displays on LinkedIn.
For further information, please visit www.sdidisplays.co.uk/ppe
44 PECM Issue 45