From plastic granulate to finished firefighting helmet: How a Rosenbauer HEROS is made! -

You have probably already asked yourselves the question:

“How is a firefighting helmet like this actually made?”

In this blog post, I would like to give you a few insights into the making of a HEROS firefighting helmet – from small plastic granulate to the finished firefighting helmet.

Of course, there is already a lot of work behind us before we can even start with the injection molding process (the process in which all the plastic parts used in a firefighting helmet are manufactured). In the injection molding process, a special high-performance plastic type defined in the development phase of the helmet is liquefied in the screw of the injection molding machine at a very high temperature and injected into the injection mold at high pressure and temperature. After enough material has been injected to fill up the entire cavity of the injection mold, the cooling phase begins. As soon as this phase is completed, the highly complex mold opens fully automatically and the helmet shell is removed by a robot and placed on a conveyor belt.

The quality assurance process already begins now and continues until the helmet is packaged and ready for sale.

The helmet shell is checked for dimensional accuracy, weight, completeness and much more. In addition, an RFID chip is glued into the helmet shell on which all this information, and much more, is written. As already explained in one of my earlier blog posts, this RFID chip is also used in helmet production, where all production-related data is stored and which can subsequently also be used for personalization by the customer.

Only helmet shells that are 100% flawless go on to coating in a reusable transport box. The helmet shells are coated on a state-of-the-art robotic coating system – in up to 9 different colors, depending on the customer’s wishes.

Once the coating process is complete and the helmet shells have passed the very strict quality control, the actual assembly process now begins at the Rosenbauer Helmet Center in Pichling near Linz.

There, the helmets are manufactured to a high variance, according to the wishes of the customers, and after a final quality control they are delivered to the customers worldwide.

Since the helmet is part of the personal protective equipment (PPE), it is also inevitable that each batch is subjected to so-called “batch testing.” In batch testing, a defined number of helmets per production batch are tested and approved in the in-house test center according to selected standard tests (EN or NFPA standard).

This ensures that only helmets that meet 100% of the requirements go out to the customers and provide the emergency personnel with maximum protection in all situations.