Wen/Tian Zhongzhao
In China's anti-epidemic process, the domestic car and parts companies have played a small role, Wuling, BYD, Guangzhou Automobile, as well as ZF have switched to the production of masks and other medical protection materials, to solve the urgent needs of everyone.
Possibly inspired by the Chinese car companies to switch to the production of masks, many foreign car companies are also in danger, have been asked to switch to the production of respirators.
US: Ford, GM, Tesla named
As of yesterday, the number of confirmed cases in the United States had reached more than 80,000, surpassing Italy and China as the world's highest number of confirmed cases.
Trump was actually getting restless before that, and after Musk expressed a desire to produce respirators for the country, Trump responded quickly on March 22, naming Ford, GM, and Tesla, giving them the green light and urging them to produce them as soon as possible, "Show me how good you guys are?"
GM said it is currently scheduled to supply ?95 percent? of the parts needed for the ventilators and is seeking to procure the remaining?37?necessary parts. The first batch of parts will be delivered by?April?5? and it expects to produce about?200?000 ventilators.
Italy: Turns to Ferrari and FCA
In Italy, where the outbreak has been most severe, the government has asked the country's largest ventilator maker,?Siare?Engineering? to increase its monthly production capacity to?500?units from?160?
So?Siare?turned to Ferrari and?FCA?for help in making some of the parts for the ventilators,?noted Siare?CEO?Gianluca?Preziosa,?pointing out that? The two industries share some ****ing characteristics,? both rely more on electronics and gas mechanics. And, automotive companies have strong buying power and a global supply chain to get the parts they need quickly.
A spokesman for FCA said a meeting with Siare had been held on March 19 and that there were two options: FCA and Ferrari provide technical support to help Siare produce parts; or outsource all parts production to the automaker.
Britain: aerospace companies, Rolls-Royce into the main
According to the Guardian 25?day report, the British government has to large respiratory manufacturers to the production drawings, and convened, including aerospace companies Meggitt (Meggitt), GKN, GKN, automotive companies Rolls-Royce, McLaren Group, Nissan, defense manufacturers Thales Group (Thales) The "Ventilator Emergency Response Team" was formed by a wide range of companies, including automotive companies Rolls-Royce, McLaren Group and Nissan, defense manufacturer Thales, and medical device maker Renishaw.
Megatron will be responsible for the main part of the ventilator, with GKN and Thales supporting the 3D printing technology needed to make the part; McLaren and Thales will be responsible for the design; Renishaw will be responsible for providing specialist medical support, and Nissan will open up its Sunderland plant in the north-east of the UK to the production of the part if all goes well.
There are only two requirements: 1. they must be based on domestically available parts/raw materials, and 2. they must be designed only to work, with the main aim of "rapid mass production".
It can be seen that the UK has decided that quantity is not quality in order to mass produce ventilators as quickly as possible.
Germany: Volkswagen is exploring 3D printing ventilator
Germany Volkswagen is also examining the possibility of using 3D printers to produce ventilator parts, Volkswagen said in a statement that the group has more than ?125 ?sets of industrial ?3D ?printers, there are a number of technological reserves in the area of 3D printing, and is willing to assist the ventilator manufacturers to produce related parts and other life-saving equipment through the way of 3D printing. and other life-saving equipment.
An in-house team has already been formed on the conversion to medical ventilators, and is in the process of testing related materials and contacting the supply chain.
However, the reality is not optimistic, German experts also said: car companies to switch to the production of respirators is unrealistic
Taking Tesla as an example, Musk once thought that Tesla is the most capable of producing respirators, because Tesla has advanced air conditioning heat pump technology, one of the indispensable technologies in the production of respirators; Tesla's HEPA air-conditioning filters may reach the filtration standard of respirators with a little bit of improvement; while SAS has the most advanced air-conditioning filters in the world. respirator filtration standards; and the SpaceX spacecraft's life-support system could provide the technological basis for a respirator.
But the reality is that Tesla is not in a position to mass-produce ventilators right now either, and after being named by Trump, Musk had to turn to China for help, purchasing ?1,255? FDA-certified ventilators shipped to Los Angeles to save the day through Tesla's China team on March 25th.
And judging from Musk's March 27 tweet, Tesla is still afraid it won't be able to switch to ventilators anytime soon, so "the company will offer ventilators made by other manufacturers such as ResMed, Philips, and Medtronic starting tonight."
To put it bluntly, it still relies on procurement.
This is probably the fastest Musk has ever been slapped in the face, but of course, he can't be blamed - after all, it's a worldwide problem for car companies to switch to respirator production. Niklas?Kuczaty, head of medical technology at the German Machinery Production Association, also said, "It's unrealistic for a car company to produce a medical device as complex as a respirator in just a few weeks or months."
So what's the difficulty for car companies to switch to respirators?
But carefully pondered, there are a lot of questions about this matter
1. time, car companies to produce mask production line very quickly, may be a month out of the product, but the transfer of respiratory is not so much, which is not only to meet the requirements of the clean room, but also to meet the relevant standards for medical devices.
The University of Notre Dame specializes in supply chain research, said Caitlin Wolvaert, a professor at the University of Notre Dame. Prof. Wolvaert said, "The speed of a converted plant depends on how similar the new products that will be made in the product line are to existing products." ?
And the view of several foreign experts is that it could take ?18?months, and a year faster, to get car companies to switch to respirator production. By then, herd immunity is expected to have emerged.
2. Technology, China's respiratory capacity is high, the brand is also more, but limited to low-end brands, high-end products still rely on imports, the current high-end respiratory core technology patents and other patents are still in the hands of a few overseas groups.
And for car companies, respiratory manufacturers are willing to share their design drawings and other resources to what extent, directly related to the ability of the car companies to switch production. But obviously this kind of thing that concerns the rice bowl is not something that can be easily announced to the public.
This comes after an incident in Italy in which engineers used?3D?printing to create a breathing valve to solve a hospital's immediate needs, only to be sued by the manufacturer for copyright infringement. Even though the lawsuit was eventually canceled, the original manufacturer "was still unable to provide the design documentation due to medical regulations".
3. The supply chain is different from that of a mask, which can be supplied by a single supplier. But a respirator is a precision instrument that involves hundreds of parts, and the supply chain for these parts is scattered around the world, especially in China.
So even if, as in the UK, technical information is available directly from respiratory manufacturers, the global supply chain is broken under the epidemic, and the lack of raw materials prevents anyone from mass-producing respiratory machines in a short period of time.
4. Professionals, automobiles and ventilator production lines operate to different standards. Medtronic, a well-known medical manufacturer, has said that ventilator manufacturing is a complex process that requires a skilled and professional workforce and a strict regulatory system to ensure that the product is up to standard.
But under the current epidemic, foreign OEM factories are shutting down production one after another, and ordinary employees can't be summoned, let alone professional production workers.
All in all, for car companies, perhaps to build millions of cars can be familiar with, but to cross the border mass production of respirators, still trapped.
Of course, in the world's anti-epidemic action, our determination is the same, so we can only hope that ventilator manufacturers and car companies in the interests of public welfare issues to reach a **** knowledge, we can do a part of their own responsibility and commitment.
This article comes from the author of the automobile home car family, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.