The sudden pneumonia epidemic has touched the nerves of hundreds of millions of people, in this battle against the epidemic without smoke, the automotive industry has shown strong action, so far there have been more than 70 companies donations, totaling more than 1 billion yuan.
But donations alone can't solve the problem of shortages of medical supplies such as masks, and domestic production of masks is still difficult to meet the huge demand. In view of this, some car companies are through the transformation of factories to produce masks, including SAIC-GM-Wuling, BYD, GAC Group and so on. In this regard, I'm sure we all have questions about how difficult it is for car companies to produce masks across lines like mountains. Can they join to solve the situation of tight medical supplies?
How difficult is it to switch to the production of masks?
The most important point for car companies to switch to producing masks is to practice social responsibility, which is due to the spirit of enterprise. In addition, in manufacturing, medical mask production technology barriers are not high.
From the construction level, the general medical masks are composed of three layers of material, close to the skin of the inner layer of ordinary health gauze or non-woven skin-friendly materials; the middle layer of ultra-fine polypropylene fibers meltblown material layer, used for isolation and filtration; the outer layer of the composition of non-woven or ultra-thin polypropylene meltblown material layer, used for bacteriological inhibition. Among them, the polypropylene material is the same as the raw material of the sound insulation cotton of the car.
Previously, due to the previous close to the Spring Festival, the vast majority of the relevant production enterprises have been shut down for vacation, workers return home, raw materials stop supply, logistics stoppage, so that the supply of masks can not meet the market demand, but after the outbreak of the epidemic, the relevant enterprises have resumed production. In addition to these medical material manufacturers supply materials, Sinopec and other companies have also provided meltblown nonwoven fabric and other materials, willing to lack of raw materials for the mask manufacturers to deliver. That is to say, raw materials are no longer a bottleneck restricting the mask capacity to climb.
In addition, the mask manufacturing process for car companies is not a problem, because the mask of the automatic production line using rolls of non-woven fabric, automatically cut into the shape of the mask, stacked and welded ear straps, after disinfection and other procedures to package the finished product, the whole process is fully automated. The whole process is fully automated. The automobile manufacturing process also requires cutting, stacking and welding processes.
In fact, in the medical mask production process, the main difficulty is to have the production qualification and professional production environment.
Under the epidemic, the relevant departments around the qualification approval has opened a green channel. As for the production environment, in the production process of medical masks, not only need constant temperature and humidity, but also can not be contaminated by dust and other small debris, and enter the workshop personnel must wear a dust-free jumpsuit and through the automatic air shower door, these requirements and the production base of the car company's paint shop work is extremely similar.
What are the advantages of car companies over others?
Raw materials, production qualifications, technical thresholds are not a problem, then in the case of the urgent need for masks in society, it is not surprising that car companies turn to the production of masks. In addition, compared with other enterprises, car enterprises cross-border production of masks in terms of personnel, capital, technical reserves, special production sites have great advantages.
Because the automobile industry is a comprehensive industry, most of the final products in various fields are related to automobiles, and Guangzhou Automobile, BYD and other automobile enterprises also have strong manufacturing capabilities and industrial base, they use the advantages of the global layout of the procurement of reserve materials at the same time, but also with their own production management, technology output and other aspects of the ability to get through the procurement of raw materials, equipment manufacturing, product production and other whole industry chain, from the source to increase the production and supply of materials.
For example, SAIC-GM-Wuling, it is through the upstream suppliers will be the company's original clean room directly transformed into mask production line, and the raw materials of the mask is also by the original supply of sound insulation cotton and other automotive interior suppliers to provide. As for BYD, there is no need to say more, its business scope touches a number of industries, with long-term cooperation and stability of the upstream raw material resources, raw materials and production technology to prepare a great guarantee.
In fact, the car companies to camp production masks also have a certain positive significance, because by the car market sales continue to decline, some of the car companies have spare capacity, which allows them to have more conditions to put into the production of masks, even if the official resumption of work does not affect the normal production of automobiles.
Will the entry of car companies help solve the mask shortage?
In terms of production, SAIC-GM-Wuling said it will set up 14 production lines for masks, of which 4 are N95 mask production lines and 10 are general medical protective mask production lines, and the daily production volume may reach more than 1.7 million by then. BYD planning medical mask production capacity of up to 5 million per day, but also the daily production of 50,000 bottles of disinfectant, scheduled to start shipping on February 17th. In other words, after the car companies cross-border aid production, only BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling two companies will contribute an additional 6.7 million masks daily production capacity.
On the concept of daily production of 6.7 million masks, let's look at a set of data. According to the China Textile Business Association published a display, the total output of all types of masks in China in the year 2018 was 4.54 billion. In terms of daily production, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released figures that China has the ability to produce 20 million masks a day, including sponge masks, activated charcoal masks, woolen masks, etc., which do not have much effect on the isolation of viruses.
It can be seen that the amount of masks produced by two companies, BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling, account for a large proportion of society. Although it can not completely solve the demand for masks in society, but the help brought is quite considerable. What's more, these two car companies have set a model, and after announcing their switch to mask production, GAC Group and other companies have joined in, and the whole automobile industry is trying to contribute to the society.
It is worth mentioning that as of February 11, GAC has successfully installed and debugged the first mask production equipment, and will manufacture 30 units by the end of this month. And SAIC-GM-Wuling's renovation work and production preparations have been launched and are scheduled to be completed this month. It is believed that the shortage of medical supplies will be greatly relieved in the near future.
After the arrival of the epidemic, car companies have stepped forward, following the donations, and then changed the production of masks, disinfectant and other medical supplies, not only to effectively help the community to alleviate the dilemma of the shortage of supplies, but also to fully demonstrate the strong social responsibility of the car companies and a strong comprehensive manufacturing capacity.
This article comes from the author of the automobile home car, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.