INDUSTRY STEPS UP

The crisis facing the globe as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic has meant engineers and engineering have been at the forefront of the fight against it. Paul Fanning reports.

s things stand, it is hard to imagine positives from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Indeed, it almost seems vaguely distasteful to do so given the havoc that it is wreaking on people’s health and welfare across the globe.

However, if there are positives to be drawn, one that seems likely is that it has forced society to realise the value of roles and professions that previously were largely taken for granted. These range from supply chain logistics to shelf-stacking; lorry driving to cleaning, we are all

discovering a new-found appreciation of the importance of certain jobs to our way of life.

In particular, the importance of engineering design and manufacturing has been thrust

into the limelight by Covid-19. The dawning realisation that the NHS would not have sufficient ventilators to cope with the demand caused by the disease has forced government to call upon the UK’s engineers and manufacturers to help design and manufacture these life-saving pieces of equipment within a timeframe

that would have been considered impossible in normal circumstances.

Ventilators are vital in helping the worst-affected Covid-19 patients with respiratory issues. They work like artificial lungs to provide oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. NHS chief executive Sir Stephens has

said the health service has 6,699 adult mechanical ventilators and 750 paediatric ventilators that can be repurposed, while there are an estimated 691 in the private sector and 35 in the Ministry of Defence.

As reported in our previous issue, a Downing Street spokesman said

of this drive: “We’re calling on the manufacturing industry and all those with relevant expertise who might be able to help to come together to help the country tackle this national crisis. We need to step up production of vital equipment such as ventilators so that we can all help the most vulnerable,

and we need businesses to come to us and help in this national effort.”

To say that the response has been heartening would be an understatement. Eureka’s editorial inbox has been flooded with news of companies responding to this request.

Clearly this is an ongoing situation to which there are bound to be updates in forthcoming months, but some of the early developments include the announcement that

TTP, the Cambridgeshire-based technology and product development company, is working with Dyson to produce 15,000 ventilators.

Known as The CoVent, their version is a bed-mounted, portable ventilator that can run on mains or battery power, meaning it can be used in field hospitals if required.

Providing it receives regulatory approval, the government will pay for 10,000 of Dyson and TTP’s ventilators. A further 1,000 will be donated here, while the remaining 4,000 are being produced for other countries.

TTP could not comment on the plans at this stage, but it is believed the companies created a prototype within 10 days, and it is hoped that the first ones will be in hospitals within weeks.

James Dyson, the founder of Dyson was contacted by the Prime Minister to produce the ventilators. “Since I received a call from Boris Johnson,’ he wrote in an email to staff, “we have refocused resources at Dyson, and worked with TTP, The Technology Partnership, to design and build an entirely new ventilator, The CoVent.”

“This new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume. It is designed to address

Providing it

UK industrial, technology and engineering businesses from across the aerospace, automotive and medical sectors, that has come together to produce medical ventilators for the UK. On 16 April, this consortium announced that it had secured MHRA approval for

a ventilator design, meaning the medical device can now be used in hospitals across the country.

Ventilator Challenge UK, led by Dick Elsy, CEO of High

Value Manufacturing Catapult, is accelerating the production of a new ventilator design based on existing technologies. The designs can be assembled from materials and parts in current production. Component manufacturing and assembly of existing ventilator designs by Smiths Medical and Penlon are being scaled up across the country at

different manufacturing sites. The consortium has also

the specific clinical needs of Covid-19 patients, and it is suited to a variety of clinical settings. The core challenge was how to design and deliver a

new, sophisticated medical product

engineers and our partners at TTP have achieved. I am eager

to see this new device in production and in hospitals as

receives regulatory approval, the government will pay for 10,000 of Dyson and TTP’s ventilators.

A further 1,000 will be donated here, while the remaining 4,000 are being produced for other countries

commenced deliveries of the Smiths Group’s existing paraPAC plus

design, which already has regulatory approval.

Elsy said of this announcement: “I’m very pleased to confirm that we have now secured MHRA

approval for the Penlon Prima

in volume and in an extremely short space of time. The race is now on to get it into production.

“The Dyson Digital motor sits at the heart of the new device and the motor’s design is optimised to have a very high level of intrinsic safety, making it particularly well-suited for industrial, high volume production.

The device is designed to achieve a high-quality air supply to ensure

its safety and effectiveness, drawing

soon as possible. This is clearly

a time of grave international crisis, I will therefore donate 5,000 units to the international effort, 1,000 of which will go to the United Kingdom.”

Some questioned the decision to give Dyson and TTP this contract, But Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that the g vernment was working with companies that

already produce ventilators too.“Frankly right across the

ESO2 device which has been undergoing stringent testing and

clinical trials for the last two weeks. Ventilators of this type are complex and critical pieces of medical equipment so ensuring the absolute adherence to regulatory standards and meeting clinical needs were lways our priorities. We will now accelerate the ramp up of production at the Penlon site in Oxfordshire

and the new VCUK production lines

on our air purifier expertise which

world, the de

and for

we’ve built in Broughton, Dagenham

delivers high-quality filtration in high- volume products.

“Ventilators are a regulated product so Dyson and TTP will be working with the MHRA and the government to ensure that the product and the manufacturing process is approved. We have received an

initial order of 10,000 units from the UK government which we will supply on an open-book basis. We are also looking at ways of making it available internationally.

“I am proud of what Dyson

ventilators is incredibly high so it is not possible to produce too many,” he said. “So anyone th t can, should turn their production and their engineering minds to

the production of ventilators,” he said.

Proof of this has come in the form of Ventilator Challenge UK,

A consortium of significant

and Woking. Having already commenced deliveries of the Smiths Group’s paraPAC plus devices, we are working closely with our supply chain partners to rapidly scale up production to achieve our target

of at least 1,500 units a week of the combined Penlon and Smiths models.

I want to take this opportunity to again thank every member of the

conso tium and the hundreds of dedicated colleagues who ha e been working day and night to get us to this point.”

The Penlon device is a newly- adapted ventilator design, adapted from previous models, that meets the rapidly manufactured ventilator system specification. It is a fully intubated mechanical ventilator designed to provide support to critically ill patients with a range

of functions including volume and pressure-controlled ventilation.

Following the device’s approval, the government has confirmed an order for 15,000 Penlon devices.

Hundreds of units were expected to be built over the following week, with production being further scaled up in the coming weeks.

Elsy said: “Ventilators of this type are complex and critical pieces of medical equipment, so ensuring the absolute adherence to regulatory standards and meeting clinical needs were always our priorities.”

The consortium will now accelerate the ramp up of production at the Penlon site in Oxfordshire and the new production lines built in Broughton, Dagenham, Woking and Maidenhead.

3D printing has also come into its own during this crisis. In one

example, a trio of manufacturers have deployed cutting-edge 3D printing

doctors at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust.

Clinicians at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford called on industry to help them meet unprecedented demand for

3D printing has also come into its own during this crisis. In one

example, a trio of manufacturers have deployed cutting-edge 3D printing technology to support

the NHS in caring for critically-ill coronavirus patients

Heap & Partners is set to move production of the valves to injection moulding in a bid to

rapidly increase the scale and pace of delivery. The company also 3D printed face masks for healthcare

workers treating patients at

technology to support the NHS in caring for critically-ill coronavirus patients.

Wirral-based manufacturer Heap & Partners worked with Mercedes- Benz and Airbus to produce

3D-printed valves to convert scuba- diving equipment into ventilator masks. The manufacturers last month answered a call for help from frontline

treatment.

In some three weeks the manufacturers re-deployed 3D laser printers to produce thousands of ‘Charlotte’ valves. The Charlotte valves were used to adapt scuba diving masks into fully functioning ventilator masks suitable for use

in emergency therapy in the pre- intubation stage.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Heap & Partners also set up a collection point at the firm’s Birkenhead headquarters for

individuals who have a 3D printer at home and want to play their part in the national fight against coronavirus.

While ventilators are certainly the most high-profile example of design and engineering stepping up to the plate during this crisis, they are certainly not the only one. The demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) occasioned by Covid-19 is well-documented and there has been a global shortage of it – something that is critical among medical personnel.

Here, designers and engineering companies have stepped in, with 3D printing having played a significant part. One example in Inverness companies, 4c Engineering and Aseptium, which teamed up to design and manufacture face shields for

the ICU unit at their local hospital, Raigmore, making 3,000 face shields in the first two weeks.