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Look I'm no fan of the guy but in this instance I don't give a damn about his politics.
Your thoughts? Worth reading as it compares his approach to the direction of a consortium including Airbus etc.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52043767
Hope they are more reliable than the vacuum cleaners from before 2010, old charity I worked for had loads of broken ones handed in on a regular basis! 😆
The government have produced this spec for a minimum ventilator. I would have thought Dyson would be able to make them - however doesn't dyson make everything in the far east?
Seems to be conflicting info on when they will be available. I read early April.. which seems completely unrealistic.
If he can pull that off then all is forgiven for his stance on brexit..
Dyson is a stand-alone company and can take decisions quickly.
A consortium, by it's nature, cannot respond as quickly - think management by committee.
The fact they are doing something is the important part of the message.
Hope they are more reliable than the vacuum cleaners from before 2010, old charity I worked for had loads of broken ones handed in on a regular basis!
We have 3 between us, FIL and SIL, 2 DC04's and a DC07. Needed a couple of roller bearings and a belt changing between the lot of them. Old ones are tanks.
Even if they only worked for a year WGAF? They are needed now and so long as they can be build in the volume required and are relaible enough that's all we need.
doesn’t dyson make everything in the far east?
From the article.
It hopes to build the ventilators at scale from its UK base in Wiltshire
Presumably even if most of their production is far east they still have suitable machinery in the UK for building prototypes etc which can be scaled up.
PS Has Brexit still got to be brought into everything?
However, it estimates that the NHS will need at least 30,000 to deal with the potential flood of virus victims.
So we're nowhere near the worst of it yet 🙁
If you read the news report, it confirms production will be in Wiltshire which was in UK last time I looked.
PS Has Brexit still got to be brought into everything?
Well, it’s why the offer of ventilators from Europe was turned down, one would presume, and why this particular company was chosen instead. Pretty obvious which ones will be ready first, and at scale, so there must have been other criteria. The Dyson plan is high risk and the smell of political motivation is hard to ignore. It’s not the only source being used though.
Are Dyson in the medical devices business already?
If not I'd expect them to be surprised by the regulatory hoops they'll need to jump through compared with regular consumer leccy goods.
Still I'm sure sir James knows what he is doing...
"It hopes to build the ventilators at scale from its UK base in Wiltshire"
There's a difference between building and manufacturing. Can't build anything if you aint got the bits.
GTech are trying to make one too
There are some interesting videos on Twitter of the designs
There’s a potential G-Tech ventilator as well which is an interesting design
https://www.gtech.co.uk/ventilators
Presumably even if most of their production is far east they still have suitable machinery in the UK for building prototypes etc which can be scaled up.
All their engineering development and prototyping is carried out at their place in Malmesbury, plus they’ve got an engineering school with apprentice training on-site, so producing things like ventilators to an existing spec shouldn’t be an issue; I think Ford in the States is producing ventilators, and military manufacturing companies as well, can’t think of specifics off-hand.
A ventilator isn’t that sophisticated a piece of equipment, they had furniture companies building fighter planes during the last war, a ventilator shouldn’t be too much of a challenge to a precision engineering company.
Any ventilator from a new supplier will be subject to testing and approval before volume production so....potential to fail and, therefore, a risky strategy.
Applies equally to Dyson as it does to other new suppliers.
I believe there are different types of ventilator and the current focus is on the most basic type but could be totally wrong.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/23/carmakers-make-nhs-ventilators-coronavirus-uk-government-nissan-rolls-royce
Totally missed out on the UK not accepting ones from the EU. Link anyone?
Sorry to go off topic.
lurpak - gov have stated that supply chains must be transparent and will be reviewed as part of approval process.
Parts will have to be air freighted as the criticality rules out sea freight.
How robust are the supply chains and what has been done to secure supply?
What about supply chain capacity?
Has any of this been mapped?
kelvin - what's your source for asserting UK will not accept ventilators made in EU?
What about ventilators from far east?
That's not clear; it says UK not joining Brussels scheme but does not state 'not buying from EU countries'.
The NHS will buy wherever they can - and would be irresponsible not to.
If there hoovers are anything to go by then they'll break in half just by looking at them
they had furniture companies building fighter planes during the last war
What do you count as a war? Afghanistan? Iraq? Falklands? Malaya? Suez? Korea?
The G tech solution is very impressive. And I think will be the solution. Read it. It uses physical rather than electrical control to inflate a bag. No electric parts. But I see one potential flaw.
The ventilator is driven and controlled entirely from the hospital oxygen supply without the need for electricity.
If your bed is in the middle of the Excel building. That is going to need a lot of oxygen bottles. I suspect they have that in mind. I am impressed by it. They’ve shared it and I can see why.
As for certification, in time’s of crisis, you would be surprised what is possible. Regulation of medical devices, therapeutics and interventions is always balancing benefit risk ratio. This ratio can change dramatically and the approval process changes with the need. That is reality.
The Dyson solution will be elegant, complex and unreliable. Gtech have nailed it. And they built my son’s favourite electronic toy 20 years ago (a spelling frog if you want to know).
Dyson aren't designing it on their own, it's a partnership with TTP, a Cambridge based design consultancy who have experience in medical devices. I'm sure Dyson also have access, either here or abroad, to the resources to make it, like injection moulding kit.
Airbus, GKN and Meggit are changing UK production and using metal additive manufacturing to produce Meggit’s existing ventilator design at scale. We’re just going through trials to prove the AM produced parts are safe for patients and use with oxygen.
That G-Tech unit looks incredibly simple . solenoid, Syringes , return springs , half a dozen JG speddfit fittings and some clear hose. The bladder has to be an existing medical item , but the recirc of O2 as enrichment is genius
Surely BOC could get a road tanker of O2 to Nightingale ? Rather than K cyclinders , there must be ways to repurpose cyro CO2 units but I am unsure of the pressure differential between liquid C0s and 02. Might be flow problems if demand is high ,icing of regs, although heated ones are available for CO2
Your not getting compressible oxygen into a CO2 tank.
Threads are wrong for a start and I can't see anyone filling it when it goes against all the industries safety practices.
Do the new devices will look good, be expensive, and break easily ?
I thought F1 teams were starting to make ventilators ?
Tesla solution is to partner with existing manufacturer too.
Gtech type solution is short term, bang them out by the thousands and hope they don't need to be used whilst the more sophisticated models get built.
A ventilator isn’t that sophisticated a piece of equipment,
Errrmmmmm
Even the minimum spec one is a pretty complex bit of kit. A full modern vent is very sophisticated. they also have to be robust as nurses are notorious for breaking stuff and reliable.
I rather suspect “minimum spec” is about to be redefined
Along with the ‘minimum standards’
There has been a minimum spec developed for this crisis. Its a much less sophisticated machine than the usual stuff but its the minimum useful spec
I rather suspect “minimum spec” is about to be redefined
Along with the ‘minimum standards’
and with good reason. I don't think a free for all is forecast but when they're moving body bags out of the back doors of the hospital to the local ice rink which has been commandeered as a morgue because the crematoria can't process the dead fast enough, some bloke with a clipboard at the front door moaning about procedures is going to get moved aside fairly quickly.
These are not normal times. The risk-benefit ratio is vastly different compared to normal and taking a calculated punt on some high quality manufacturers being able to deliver something that is good enough in these times - where do I sign. As they're hooking me up to it I won't be demanding to see its CE marking and BSI certification.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy - or as Iron Mike put it...
I thought F1 teams were starting to make ventilators ?
They're part of one of the consortiums (consortia?) - possibly the Meggit one. I know a lot of progress has been made.
@singletrackmind
BOC depot currently operating 24/7 producing cylinders for medical O2, order placed this week for 5 figure more medical O2 J cylinders over the next few weeks.
I'm half expecting wards to be full of Mr Creosote types who've just gone pop.
PS Has Brexit still got to be brought into everything?
Apparently so, seems a tad stupid to turn down the offer of getting your hands on more ventilators for the pile as opposed to some currently not existing ones.
I’m sure that they will be banging out these cheap mass produced home grown ventilators as the world really does need this type of thing, er yesterday.
The point is that those very basic "bag squeezing" machines really are no good. Hence the minimum spec I posted above. thats a lot simpler and easier to make than a normal ITU vent - but anything less simply will not have significant benefit
Ahh but putting out the message you’ve ordered 10,000 from that familiar name Dyson name reassures the public everything’s going to be fine.
Yes, I saw that. I’m amazed they’ve turned down ANY offer, including the EU one.
That guy on newsnight also said he is supplying kit for the Nightingale- sounds like a lot more than 4000 camp beds in a conference hall. Rumours of another one in .Manchester, plus one in Birmingham.
If it works well enough to keep people alive, even just to buy time to get them on to a "proper" ventilator, I really don't care if it's been made by Rolls Royce or Fisher Price
Apparently so, seems a tad stupid to turn down the offer of getting your hands on more ventilators for the pile as opposed to some currently not existing ones.
The EU ones dont exist either (yet). We're just not joining the procurement plan.
It's anybody's guess which route would get us more ventilators the quickest.
I really don’t care if it’s been made by Rolls Royce or Fisher Price
You should care if those in a position to deliver soon are passed over for someone who may deliver later… for political reasons… you know, Tory donor, Johnson backer, Vote Leave backer. Any delay will cost lives.
Anyway, lots of sources planned, not just the one headline grabber.
Excellent news. Hopefully us Brexiteers will get first dibs on them.
But youll refuse the EU nurses to run them obvs? 😜
Not helping to expand existing suppliers makes this seem more like a headline grabbing gimmick (like the offer of home antibody test kits), surely a machine that NHS staff are already familiar with & known to work safely already is better than untested & unproven design, even if it is possibly simpler
Especially as we are just weeks away from the peak, would they be ready too late
Whilst refusing to join the EU consortium seems tragically petty.
I bet if your down to the last bog roll you’d order from more than one supplier if the delivery dates were both vague 🙂
Latest update from my colleagues at big London hospital is that they are still desperately short of PPE, as well as ventilators.
Trying to find out how to sterilise & reuse old PPE , which can't be right!
Errrmmmmm
Even the minimum spec one is a pretty complex bit of kit. A full modern vent is very sophisticated. they also have to be robust as nurses are notorious for breaking stuff and reliable.
I think you’re underestimating the technological starting point of a lot of the companies involved here
Not at all - just posted that in relation to the person who said they were simple bits of kit. they are not even the new minimum spec one is still pretty complex
The other thing about going with the EU, would that result in greater demand from fewer sources reducing overall supply?
No -IMO it would give greater supply with more flexibility - we might be able to manufacture more left handed widget but be short of righthanded ones. Germany the opposite. By combining we can make more
its the usual tory ideology over anything else including lives. Johnson has to beat Mays record for the number of citizens killed without need. this is one of the ways he can do that
Trying to find out how to sterilise & reuse old PPE , which can’t be right!
Yep it wasn’t just ventilators it was the other stuff as well that need, which is why I’m er shocked they turn down the help.
Yes, I saw that. I’m amazed they’ve turned down ANY offer, including the EU one.
I assume, but might be wrong, that if you are signed up to the EU scheme you are agreeing that you don't try to source outside that scheme / you agree to share any you do source elsewhere with the rest of the EU?
God forbid we share anything.
That "hopes" in the Dyson statement is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
I loathe James Dyson and what he stands for, but I think it was a sensible approach in this case.
Dyson has experience in injection moulding along with electronic airflow control. The electronics in their fan modules are reprogrammable so they don't need to make significant design changes to reuse them. They also have a fairly large team of UK-based engineers.
Apart from the fact that I'm sure his biggest priority is getting the word DYSON emblazoned on the front of any units, it is more likely to succeed than the more random approach of millions of different parts being produced by 3D printers across the country.
His biggest problem may be getting the things from China to the UK once manufacturing is complete.
"His biggest problem may be getting the things from China to the UK once manufacturing is complete."
Nope they are being built in the UK
I don't think it would be a particularly tall order for BOC, Linde or whoever else in the incestuous owned by everyone gas industry to install a cryo tank and bottle farm wherever it needs to go. Ours at work is a tank, a pump (with nitrogen sparging above the gearbox) and a bottle farm followed by a pressure reducing station. It's going to be easier to grab medical grade than the stuff we use as well.
Gtech have nailed it. And they built my son’s favourite electronic toy 20 years ago (a spelling frog if you want to know).
Doubt that. Maybe Vtech did though. 😉
SquirrelKing - your making an assumption on BOC/Linde/Praxair (whatever they are called this week) to have something in the UK that works and is serviceable for the purpose.
14 years at BOC Healthcare and every day was a miracle we supplied who we did.
Biggest issue has always been lack of capital investment in cylinders, filling plants and maintenance. One of the biggest crisis facing healthcare from BOC's point of view for the last 10 years was the plant that created Entonox has been on its knees.
I'd like to think they would do the decent thing, but my years tell me that somewhere the board will be rubbing their hands together Monty Burns style.
It’s all gone a bit Apollo 13 hasn’t it. Can we look forward to Tom Hanks playing James Dyson in the move when it’s all over?
The electronics in their fan modules are reprogrammable
Switch suck to blow?
Doubt that. Maybe Vtech did though
You're right and obviously my age.
Rumours of another one in Manchester, plus one in Birmingham.
I don't want rumours. I want to know that they have already started. I consider it derogation not to.
Ahh but putting out the message you’ve ordered 10,000 from that familiar name Dyson name reassures the public everything’s going to be fine.
Not anyone who's owned one of their failing machines, surely? The Gtech is mechanical, not electrical (ease of manufacture), now that's a robust design with a couple of CMC parts to bolt together with conventional medical syringes. Every country with limited heathcare facilities can't ignore that and will want them. And the plans are public domain.
It was put to Zidawi on NN last night and he refused to comment. I guess there's no point buying 30000 ventilators with nowhere to put them, so it would make sense.
All the wards/beds the NHS has lost over recent years - do they physically exist?
Do we have "ghost wards" and stacks of mothballed beds?
So we’re nowhere near the worst of it yet 🙁
Not "nowhere near" we're due to get to the worst of if any day. We're bracing for the 'Virus Surge' - thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people already have the virus. Hopefully 9 days since we were first asked to Social Distance ourselves everyone who caught it prior to that are already showing symptoms and are either ill in hospital or recovering (vast majority will not get that ill, some won't even know they've got it) so less people are still in that incubation period.
You might have seen in the News when countries suddenly have thousands of new cases in 1 day, in reality that's 'just' thousands of people with symptoms worth testing / reporting.
We can expect to see 2 surges, 1 surge in people with it, and then sadly a surge in deaths before it starts to fall again.
It might be worth taking some heart from the fact we no long seem to be "2 weeks behind Italy" our 'curve' might just be flatter, might be luck, might be a one-off, but at the moment we've stopped tracking their curve.
Anyway, back on Ventilators, maybe Dyson will save the day, but I fear that it will be too late and the NHS will end up with 10k spare Ventilators a month too late. We're likely to need them in days, not weeks, I think the better prayer is for a flatter curve now than a load of extra ventilators arriving in time.
Why would you loathe Dyson? What a strange thing to proclaim - loathing someone you don't know, never met or know much about. His business model is no different to almost all others out there...keep the engineering and R&D in the UK and mass production abroad. He supported Brexit...so what...just a different opinion to yours...what makes you think your opinions are better or more correct than anyone else? Other than that he's a self made man, an inspirational entrepreneur..you know the sort of person we need in a crisis like this and in the crisis that face us long after Coronavirus has gone...like fixing the climate. But of course mr GTec is OK even though his products are made in China and he was also a brexiteer.
Even the minimum spec one is a pretty complex bit of kit. A full modern vent is very sophisticated. they also have to be robust as nurses are notorious for breaking stuff and reliable.
The complete product is sophisticated... the component parts are not. Anybody with a CNC machine can machine a part, or a mould for an injection moulding machine, the magic happens when all the component parts come together to make the product. This is just about manufacturing capacity. A jet engine is made of tens of thousands of component parts each one not particularly extraordinary in their own right (well most), but when they're all bolted together extraordinary things happen.
He supported Brexit…so what…just a different opinion to yours…what makes you think your opinions are better or more correct than anyone else
brexiteers took away peoples EU citizenship, against their wishes, more than just an opinion
turning Brexit into a culture war was a great way to polarise the country & get 1/2 of us to vote for it, but when you want national unity afterwards, even in a crisis, its not that easy to put it back in the box
So we’re nowhere near the worst of it yet 🙁
This is how I see it
I was with students Thursday last week (3000 people on 1 building). So might well have been exposed.
I also had a small chance of catching friday as I went to a shop and went to work but with no students. But i was in a room with 30 people.
So I'm just over the peak for being likely to show symptoms. But round the country there will be people getting I'll having caught it before the lock down.
The next big surge is that odds on everyone who now has it at least infects everyone else in their house. It's at least a week until that comes through. Only after that can the lock down have an impact
But most of use aren't ill. That's the way it has to be. Even 1% of us will overwhelm the system
That’s not clear; it says UK not joining Brussels scheme but does not state ‘not buying from EU countries’.
The NHS will buy wherever they can – and would be irresponsible not to.
The gov refusing to joing the scheme will put us further down the list in terms of customer priority for a range of products from ventilators right through to face masks.
It's ****ing stupid, the government refusing to get in contact with MEC is also ****ing crazy.
SquirrelKing – your making an assumption on BOC/Linde/Praxair (whatever they are called this week)
You're right, it's just an assumption. I'll defer to your better (bitter?) knowledge of the industry. Sadly what you say doesn't surprise me really.
Squirrel king, might have been a little bitter 5 years ago, not so much now 🙂
Former colleagues tell me nothing much has changed however.
I’m sure Dyson also have access, either here or abroad, to the resources to make it, like injection moulding kit.
Yes, at his new engineering place at Hullavington, in a pair of old RAF hangars that were also previously used for parachute packing.
Dyson bought the airfield and a chunk of its infrastructure to develop his electric car project, which he’s abandoned, but the R&D and engineering is all there, and he has access to huge numbers of his tiny electric motors, so it looks like Dyson has no problem getting this ventilator system into production.
On a similar note, it seems that a design company has created a valve system called the Charlotte Valve, that can be 3D printed and fitted into a Decathlon scuba mask!
I love this sort of hack, repurposed existing kit that’s readily available into something for an emergency using a 3D printed part that can be printed off by anyone with access to an appropriate printer using free software.
https://www.yankodesign.com/2020/03/26/a-clever-3d-printed-component-is-helping-decathlon-turn-scuba-masks-into-ventilators/
Unfortunately not any use at all in the current situation.
Non Invasive Ventilation is good for people with mild to moderate respiratory failure, but every time you remove the mask, or the pissed off patient removes the mask, or the patient needs to eat, or drink, the whole room and whichever nurse is in there gets showered with a load of nice warm moist virusy air...
So Johnson said we can't participate in the EU scheme because we're out of the EU, even tho EU said we can still be part of it.
While Hancock says we didn't because we missed the deadline?
Brexit pigheadedness or just incompetence?
They are still f'ing lying about Europe
Have to say, it sounds good, but 10,000 ventilators that haven't even been prototyped yet with delivery beginning in April sounds very optimistic, yes you can create prototypes, you can even start production, but how the hell do you do your validation and verification trials in such short order, how do you put in place a high level of quality control for a product that isn't really understood as of yet, reliability in this type of system needs to be very high, is an unproven design, using an unproven manufacturing facility and so many unknowns.
This is a very high risk venture, build to print would be a lot easier to sell than a whole new design, by a single manufacturer, at a single unproven site.
But it is great PR for both sides
Grrrr...
Ventilators are not the issue; people to use them are. We will run out of people to use them before we run out of ventilators, even if we don't make anymore.
Ventilators are not magic wands; it's wizards we need...