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Ford Works With 3M, GE, UAW to Speed Production of Respirators for Healthcare Workers, Ventilators for Coronavirus Patients


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Since much of this social distancing to "flatten the curve" is unfortunately necessary despite it's severe consequences to the economy is based on the lack of ventilators,  I would love to know what exactly goes into ramping up production of ventilators.   For instance,

-does Ford build these on an assembly line or which factory/facility do they build them in, 

- when will Ford actually start building Ventilators?  days?  weeks? months?

- How many ventilators will Ford be making a week?   at the start, after 2 weeks, at full speed? 

 

Medical equipment and Car manufacturing doesn't seem connected, or perhaps they can use the ecoboost technology to blow air into our bodies.......In which case this could be a great brand loyalty builder.... 20 years from today you'll have a Dad saying "Son if it wasn't for Ford's Ecoboost technology you wouldn't be here today"

 

Seriously though - if Covd 19 won't have a vaccine for a year (assuming they can develop one) this sounds like a big piece of the long term puzzle (and we should have started this effort 2 months ago once we saw what was happening in China). 

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23 hours ago, Fordowner said:

Since much of this social distancing to "flatten the curve" is unfortunately necessary despite it's severe consequences to the economy is based on the lack of ventilators,  I would love to know what exactly goes into ramping up production of ventilators.   For instance,

-does Ford build these on an assembly line or which factory/facility do they build them in, 

- when will Ford actually start building Ventilators?  days?  weeks? months?

- How many ventilators will Ford be making a week?   at the start, after 2 weeks, at full speed? 

 

Medical equipment and Car manufacturing doesn't seem connected, or perhaps they can use the ecoboost technology to blow air into our bodies.......In which case this could be a great brand loyalty builder.... 20 years from today you'll have a Dad saying "Son if it wasn't for Ford's Ecoboost technology you wouldn't be here today"

 

If you read the article they are using fans from seats and 3D printed parts. The work is also done at the experimental/test assembly plant, which I assume can tool up quickly for tasks like this. 

Edited by silvrsvt
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28 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

If you read the article they are suing fans from seats and 3D printed parts. The work is also done at the experimental/test assembly plant, which I assume can tool up quickly for tasks like this. 

 

I read this article https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-respirators-ventilators-face-shields-125700742.html  , the link above doesn't get me to an article.    This Yahoo article says that the fans from the F150 seats are for the "new version of 3M's powered air-purifying respirators "  and the 3d printed parts are for the plastic face shields that are being made at the experimental /test assembly plant and that plan to make 100,000 of these plastic face shields a month.   Frankly plastic face shields are pretty basic. 

 

There is no information on the ventilators other than they are working with GE Healthcare to build a simplified version of one of their ventilators -  Ventilators is what I'm asking about as I believe that is one of the major challenges.  

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3 hours ago, akirby said:

Let’s give credit where it’s due.  Musk just imported 1200 ventilators from China.


Well, yeah he had to import them because we all know Tesla doesn’t have the manufacturing knowledge to produce them!  ?

 

All kidding aside, kudos to all companies helping out in this crisis. 

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22 hours ago, probowler said:

I love it!

 

If any factory workers can chime in about how this process works, it would be fascinating to see how Ford is switching up to mask production.


Since this is medical equipment I tend to think they won't use any assembly or stamping plants for this, it's too dirty of an environment. The face shields they delivered to Detroit hospitals yesterday I believe came from somewhere on the Dearborn campus but I'm not 100% sure. 

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57 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


Since this is medical equipment I tend to think they won't use any assembly or stamping plants for this, it's too dirty of an environment. The face shields they delivered to Detroit hospitals yesterday I believe came from somewhere on the Dearborn campus but I'm not 100% sure. 

 

I'm just a pimple on the Tool & Die butt, but I found it interesting that already yesterday I had a request on my desk for a component to be used in a new injection mold for a "ventilator" part. Tooling to be built by a moldmaker, request from one of the Auto manufacturers, end user one of the major Medical equipment suppliers.

 

HRG

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13 minutes ago, HotRunrGuy said:

 

I'm just a pimple on the Tool & Die butt, but I found it interesting that already yesterday I had a request on my desk for a component to be used in a new injection mold for a "ventilator" part. Tooling to be built by a moldmaker, request from one of the Auto manufacturers, end user one of the major Medical equipment suppliers.

 

HRG


What I think is really happening here since it doesn't really make much sense to make medical supplies in an automotive facility for sterilization reasons is that companies like 3M are coming to companies like Ford/GM/FCA and leaning on them for their engineering expertise and ability to design production systems in a hurry. If they’re able to make them in house somehow (like Ford is doing with face shields at the moment) then even better. 

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If they're just stockpiling them, they don't need them.... at the moment. I'd be hesitant to give NY more right now if other states are short, but eventually they may need them. Just have to make sure everyone gets their fair share and no one is left completely out to dry.

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3 hours ago, atomcat68 said:

This is after he said New York doesn't need that many ventilators.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-hannity-coronavirus-ventilators-new-york-30000/


He said they were available in a NJ warehouse but NY wasn’t using them.  
 

He also said we will export ventilators to other countries that need them.

 

And we need a national stockpile of ventilators and PpEs as future protection.

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I imagine that they are  going to deploy the stored respirators as needed but,

given the peak need is just two weeks away, I would have expected that the

extra ventilators would have already been located close to or at the hospitals

where they will be needed.

 

They've only been in lock down for just over a week, so they need time for

that to cut the infection rate because it take a weekor two before the results

start to show a slowing of the spread.

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On 3/27/2020 at 11:53 PM, rperez817 said:

Is Ford ready to produce ventilators? U.S. President Donald Trump exhorted both Ford and General Motors to do that ASAP.

 

 

 

Looks like Ford is ready to produce GE Healthcare/Airon designed ventilators at its Rawsonville, Michigan plant in 3 weeks. An official from the White House commended Ford and GE Healthcare on its effort.

 

"the Ford/GE Healthcare team is moving in ‘Trump time’ to speed urgently needed ventilators to the front lines of the Trump Administration’s full-scale war against the coronavirus. Just as Ford in the last century moved its manufacturing might seamlessly from auto to tank production during World War II, the Ford team is working with GE Healthcare to use its awesome engineering and manufacturing capabilities to voluntarily help this nation solve one of its most pressing problems. We salute that effort and look forward to the first ventilators rolling off the Michigan assembly line in record time – and we’ll be there to salute that milestone."

 

Press release. https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2020/03/30/ford-to-produce-50-000-ventilators-in-michigan-in-next-100-days.html

 

cq5dam.web.881.495.jpeg

Ventilator-Production-Chart-LR.jpg

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