1600: Ultraseal meets ventilator call
Casting impregnation specialist, Ultraseal International, has ramped up production to meet demand for ventilators for the NHS and around the world.
Ultraseal is already a key supplier in ventilator manufacturing, providing intricate masking and powder coating on cast aluminium components used in mechanical ventilators.
To increase production, Ultraseal International has taken on 25 additional staff in its Slough factory. The production schedule has also moved to a three-shift, 24/7 cycle, up from its normal two-shift, five-day cycle.
Gareth Ridge, Operations Manager at Ultraseal International’s Slough Service Centre, said “The decision to ramp up our production came after the UK government’s call out to the manufacturing industry and we are delighted to be able to help with the response.
“These are challenging times for everyone, none more so than the fantastic staff at the NHS. We want to do our bit to help, and fingers crossed with more ventilators we can save more lives and get through this as soon as we can.”
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1300: DHL Supply Chain joins VentilatorChallengeUK
DHL Supply Chain has joined the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium of businesses including Rolls-Royce, Ford, Airbus and UK-based Formula 1 teams including McLaren, to deliver at least 10,000 new ventilators to the NHS.
DHL will manage the inbound supply chain for two workstreams of VentilatorChallengeUK, which is ramping up manufacturing of existing, approved ventilator designs. Separately, the company will assist Dyson on final distribution of its new ventilator model.
“We’re honoured to be able to support this vital project and be part of a team providing lifesaving equipment to frontline NHS staff and patients," said Mike Bristow, managing director of manufacturing logistics at DHL Supply Chain. "Normally a project as complex as this would take three months to pull together, but we’ve done it in a matter of days. It’s thanks to a team of very dedicated people as well as having the existing expertise and infrastructure that can quickly adapt to a range of needs.”
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1230: UCL publishes manufacturing instructions for Covid-19 breathing aids
Following its collaboration with Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains (https://www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk/news/coronavirus-update-30-march), University College London has published all the necessary files to build the UCL-Ventura breathing aid, bringing a much-needed solution for COVID-19 patients to other countries in record time.
The designs are now available for download on the dedicated UCL Business (UCLB – UCL’s commercialisation business) website for technologies tackling the pandemic: covid19research.uclb.com.
UCLB is also offering free access to the e-lucid licensing platform to any university or researcher in the world that wishes to license under controlled conditions technologies that could help battle, model or better understand the pandemic.
The hope is that the UCL-Ventura breathing aid is the first of many innovations tackling the pandemic to become available through the dedicated site covid19research.uclb.com and that other universities join this effort by making available their technologies related to COVID-19 on the e-lucid platform.
Dr Anne Lane, CEO, UCLB said: “The collaboration highlights the positive impact that academia, healthcare and industry can have working together to fight the world’s biggest challenges. The e-lucid platform has allowed UCLB to provide UCL researchers with a portal which allows them to disseminate COVID-19 related R&D outputs in an efficient and scalable manner, as we collectively all seek to tackle the challenges arising from this pandemic.”
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1130: Wireless monitoring equipment manufacturer joins the fight
Hanwell Solutions Ltd, the UK’s leading manufacturer of wireless environmental monitoring equipment, has offered its expertise in the coronavirus response effort.
The company's ShockWatch product range of temperature indicators can be used for tracking the environmental conditions during both transport and storage of samples required for the hundreds of thousands of test kits needed by labs for diagnosis.
Diagnostic testing kits for Covid-19, and indeed any other virus, are reliant on samples remaining at the correct temperatures during shipment and storage to ensure the maximum time span for viability. The colder a sample is kept during transportation and storage, the greater the amount of time the lab has to do the test before the sample becomes non-viable. If the sample has been transported at a higher temperature and for a longer time the virus in the sample could be dead by the time the lab does the test.
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1100: Renishaw steps up ventilator production
Renishaw has started mass-producing critical components for medical ventilators. The company has dedicated a significant part of its manufacturing sites in Gloucestershire and South Wales to produce precision-machined components for two different ventilators manufactured by the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium, with production at the sites now running seven days a week.
Within a few days of the government's call to action, Renishaw joined with leading companies in the aerospace, automotive, medical devices and motorsport sectors to form the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium, under the leadership of Dick Elsy, CEO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
“When the government called, we scrambled to respond, and immediately realised the daunting scale of the challenge," explained Marc Saunders, director of group strategic development, who is leading Renishaw’s response. "Ventilators are sophisticated medical devices and we felt that our capabilities would be best applied to helping scale up the production of designs with existing technologies. We soon realised that many other industrial companies were thinking the same way and that we would need our combined capacity and capabilities to achieve this enormous endeavour.”
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1015: Henry Hoover manufacturer praised for efforts
Numatic, the manufacturer of the Henry vacuum cleaner, has been praised by the GMB union for its contribution to the coronavirus response. The company has ceased all non-essential manufacturing and instead begun make PPE including face shields and offering free cleaning services to local NHS trusts.
“I cannot commend Numatic enough," said GMB organiser, Ester Compton. "In a time of national crisis they have not only come to the fore in protecting their staff, but also getting involved in the great national effort to support our NHS and beat this crisis.
“As a Union, we stand behind Great British manufacturers. They don’t only create iconic British products like Henry and Henrietta vacuum cleaners, but also they protect and look after the workers that make the company great.”
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0930: Wire manufacturer helps in ventilator production
Wire manufactured in the West Midlands is helping support the UK’s unprecedented drive to build more ventilators.
Alloy Wire International has been commissioned to produce more than 5km of material that will be used to produce crucial parts for use in life-saving equipment destined for the groundbreaking Nightingale Hospital in London.
The company, which holds more than 200 tonnes of EU/DFARS compliant stock at any one time, put its Emergency Manufacturing Service (EMS) into action to meet the urgent requirements of a spring maker that is supplying into the VentilatorChallengeUK Consortium to assist in the ramp-up of Smiths and Penlon Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator Systems. Interest has also come in from North America and South Korea, with AWI supplying urgent quantities of custom-made Inconel spring wire and 316v Stainless Steel to a spring maker in Wisconsin and a major medical centre in Seoul respectively.
The company is also providing wire that goes into electric heating elements used for medical plastic forming and for the critical sterilisation of vital equipment.
Other customers still placing orders are involved in the detection of gases for hospital incubators, dental products and power generation.
