Ford is now producing, or readying to produce a variety of medical equipment to help fight the pandemic.
Ford Motor Co. and 3M are ramping up their ad hoc partnership in a race to fill the shortage of critical medical gear needed to address the coronavirus pandemic, including respirators, masks and face shields.
Ford will add production of medical gowns, officials said during a Monday afternoon news conference, while it also will work with Thermo Fisher Scientific to produce equipment that can speed up testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The two partners expect to begin rolling out the first powered respirators later this week and expect to produce about 100,000 of them by June, though production would continue as long as necessary, said Jim Baumbick, vice president, Ford Enterprise Product Line Management.
(Ford converting second plant to build powered respirators.)
JoAnn Ritchie, a 30 year UAW-Ford employee at Van Dyke Transmission Plant, builds face masks. Her daughter, a nurse, fights the COVID-19 outbreak.
“We’re preparing, if the need is there, to continue this longer,” said Baumbick, “to ensure that we’re really helping all these brave men and women on the front line” of the pandemic.
Hospitals nationwide have been struggling to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Many are at or near capacity as infection rates have soared in outbreak epicenters such as New York City and Detroit. Among the equipment in shortest supply are the ventilators used for some of the more hard-hit patients, as well as the personal protection equipment, or PPE, needed to keep medical personnel safe. These include low-tech gear such as masks, face shields and gowns.
Ford’s efforts have largely focused on addressing PPE shortages. It has already rolled out 3 million face shields, as well as medical-grade masks. During the Monday briefing, the automaker revealed it is adding production of medical gowns, as well.
As with other gear it is producing, Ford reached into its own tool bin to come up with the gowns which will be made of the same liquid-impervious nylon fabric used for automotive airbags.
Ford is building powered air-purifying respirators for use by medical personnel and other first responders.
According to Marcy Fisher, a senior Ford engineer, the gowns are reusable, prototypes being put through 50 wash cycles without problems.
(Ford, GE set to launch new ventilator operation on April 20.)
Ford expects to have production running at a rate of 100,000 gowns a week by April 19.
Ford announced it also has teamed up with Thermo Fisher Scientific to improve that company’s technology to speed up the testing of possible COVID-19 infections. The automaker’s engineers were able to modify the medical firm’s equipment to accept the plastic vials needed in field testing, rather than traditional rubber vials.
As a result, “we’ll more than triple the number of collection kits we can deliver each week starting April 20,” said John Reuss, senior director, microbiology business for Thermo Fisher.
Ford also designed isolation gowns using the fabric is uses for airbags.
The biggest project Ford has taken on will see the company this week begin producing a modified version of 3M’s powered respirators. The devices go one step beyond traditional medical masks by delivering a flow of freshly filtered air to doctors, nurses and other medical personnel. As with the gowns, Ford was able to access parts in its automotive bin, including blowers normally used for the climate control system on F-Series pickups, as well as small automotive batteries.
The pandemic has seen a full-on response by the auto industry. General Motors is setting up a production line at its Kokomo, Indiana electronics plant to produce ventilators in a partnership with Seattle-based Ventec Life System. GM also is helping boost production at Ventec’s own plant.
(Ford, GM prepped to build ventilators, other essential medical gear.)
And it is rolling out medical masks, as is crosstown rival Fiat Chrysler.