Detail of coronavirus test tubes
Ford, which will begin production Tuesday of air-purifying respirators in partnership with 3M
Respirator production is happening at Ford’s Vreeland facility near Flat Rock, Michigan. Beginning in late March Ford and 3M have worked together to prepare the necessary supply chain to make at least 100,000 respirators. The respirators will use 3M’s air filters that block airborne contaminants such as droplets carrying virus particles.
The work will be done by about 90 UAW workers.
Ford and 3M announced the partnership last month. Ford also has begun making medical face masks at a transmission plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
What’s new is that Ford will now work with an airbag supplier, Joyson Safety Systems, to make reusable gowns, and collaborate with Thermo Fisher Scientific to boost capacity at its Lenexa, Kansas site to make more COVID-19 testing kits.
Ford is providing engineers from its Kansas City, Missouri, assembly plant who will adapt Thermo Fisher machinery to make more glass vials required in the company’s tests that are using in drive-through COVID-19 testing centers.
“In just three weeks under Project Apollo, we’ve unleashed our world-class manufacturing, purchasing and design talent to start making personal protection equipment and help increase the availability and production of ventilators,” Jim Baumbick, vice president of Ford Enterprise Product Line Management, said in a statement.
The medical gown production came out of discussions between officials at Ford and Beaumont Health in metro Detroit. Together they came up with specifications and an appropriate design. Ford and Joyson have already make more than 5,000 gowns and plan to increase that to about 75,000 a week by late April.
“The need to protect our medical teams is heightened and Ford’s gown production could not have come at a better time during this crisis,” said David Claeys, president of Beaumont Health hospitals in Dearborn and Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Finally, Ford is converting a former automotive parts plant in Rawsonville, Michigan, to manufacture ventilators in partnership with GE Healthcare. As with the respirators, UAW workers will do the work, which is expected to start the week of April 20. The goal is to product 50,000 ventilators by July 4.
A similar effort is underway in the U.K. where Ford is working with other medical equipment companies to make about 15,000 ventilators at an engine factory in Dagenham.
