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Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Pandemic Prompts Collaborative Response from Iowa Manufacturers

With the help of: Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS)

About

The Dimensional Group is a family-owned business located in Mason City, Iowa. The company has 75 employees. Their primary market is custom packaging.

The Challenge

Through the initial outbreak of COVID-19 CIRAS focused largely on removing obstacles preventing manufacturers from addressing Iowa’s PPE crisis. CIRAS, part of the MEP National Network™, worked with The Dimensional Group to identify tooling needs and locate raw materials so that they could rapidly start producing plastic face shields that would satisfy the needs of doctors, nurses, and medical professionals.
To go from nothing to shipping product in eight or ten days, that is something that never happens,” Gold said. “There were a lot of late-night phone calls and everybody coming at it with the right attitude. . . . I don’t think you can understate the importance of CIRAS on the front end of this.
— Adam Gold, President

MEP's Role

CIRAS utilized their lab resources to make the tooling needed to produce face shields and helped identify sources for the raw materials. CIRAS consultants also paired The Dimensional Group with another Iowa company that produced one component of the face shield. Within two months the companies together produced over 1.3 million medical face shields to help alleviate the PPE shortage in Iowa.

Created January 16, 2021, Updated February 11, 2025