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So, as supplies are a challenge, surely it cannot be beyond the capability of uk manufacturing to upscale or repurpose to produce?
When we get through this, the reliance upon supply from overseas to more indigenous supply chains.
Or have we allowed our manufacturing to get so depleted?
To be honest I think manufacturing on the whole will still be mostly abroad as we just like cheap ****, including me in afraid.
Even if we do manufacture more here, we will still need to import raw materials and talent. It's an interconnected world and we are all dependant upon each other. If the virus has taught us anything it's that taking back control politically or economically is a red herring.
Repurposing manufacturing is probably not that easy either with supply chains affected and factory workers themselves affected by self isolation etc.
It's not as simple as phoning up a cylinder head manufacturer and saying you want them to make a ventilator though.
Take something simple like a disposable surgical mask (which are all but useless at protecting the wearer but it's something simple as an example). I'm sure the knickers factory on Coronation Street could make them.
But: You still then need the particular material, is it a certain weave, is it treated with something antibacterial, are they sanitized/sterilized before use, do they need to be produced in a cleanroom?
And: With a bit of skill you could probably cut out the fabric and sew it in under a minute? 60/hour, 500/day. There's probably a machine somewhere that can do that in 5 minutes, fold them, compress them into a tissue box of 100 and fill a pallet in a shift.
If you think back to WW2 and factories being turned over to making munitions, that's different because 70 years ago you had a room full of lathes and mills that could be re purposed from making one thing inefficiently to another thing inefficiently. And we spent years doing it, by the time some civil servant has had a meeting with Hope, and they've come up with a Ventilator that can be made on a CNC machine, this will have passed. And I'm sure if you asked nicely DFS could still build you a fighter plane if you gave them the plans for a Hurricane (someone should pitch that to a channel. James May or Guy Martin, it'd make a great TV program!).
I know that with regard to the ventilator project it was companies with the R&D and flexible tooling capacity that were stepping up - Rolls Royce and ProDrive for example. Toyota's car plant had to say they couldn't help as they were assembly driven not manufacturers.
Clothing should theoretically be easier if you can get the correct material, but probably still reliant at some point on a Far Eastern supplier who has been in lockdown for the last 3 months.
And I’m sure if you asked nicely DFS could still build you a fighter plane if you gave them the plans for a
Hurricanemosquito (someone should pitch that to a channel. James May or Guy Martin, it’d make a great TV program!).
Ftfy
There doesn't really seem to be much in between "business as usual" and "wartime footing". I'm sure some businesses could start manufacturing N95 masks with only a few weeks notice but I'm guessing all the bureaucracy still exists (do they need a licence to do it? how do they get paid for what they supply to the NHS or other front line services?).
The only way to get things done fast is to throw out most of the rules & regulations and give businesses a guarantee their costs will be met and whatever required equipment they manufacturer will be bought. It seems our government is taking the "I'm sure everyone will muck in and it will sort itself out" approach but that's not going to work. We'll get some good news stories about a new cheap ventilator being produced (in tiny quantities) but it won't be anywhere near enough.
The government needs to mandate business switch to manufacturing critical equipment and support them in that (removing red tape and providing financial guarantees). This isn't an actual war, it will be mostly over in 3-6 months regardless, it just how many people are going to die needlessly during that time that's the issue. It's a lot to ask a business to risk their mid-long term financial future by switching production and incurring huge costs now when there's not even a guarantee what they produce will be used let alone paid for. And unless all businesses in the supply chain step up any isolated initiatives soon break down anyway.
If you think you have the skills and raw materials to help then AlphaSolway might be interested,
https://www.alphasolway.com/respiratory
If you have a lorry that might help
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-army-to-distribute-masks-and-protective-suits-to-frontline-nhs-staff-11962153
Unless you can source all your raw materials here then supply chains will always be a problem.
This is unprecendeted, but then it also isnt; pandemic flu has been part of government planning for several years, it seems those plans were lacking (& havent been updated in sometime)
Theres also a question of getting government to take action quicker
We had a 2 month warning this could be coming , but the government only took action on extra ventialtors 2 weeks ago- a week after parts of Italy's healthcare system had collapsed, same with ordering more PPE & speaking to supermarkets about panic buying & supplies & chronic shortage of test kits.
Not helped by our hesitancy to lockdown, means that NHS is being pressured quicker than if we'd done this sooner.
The university I work at are today cooking up a batch of hand sanitizer because one of the hospitals we work with has run out (& thats after they cleared us out of safety googles, because they had virtually none to start with, while we had a large stock)
The ingredients for it are very common in the lab & must be available industrially in huge volumes, surely this could have been sorted much sooner if we'd started preparing earlier.
the WHO factsheet they are using to make it, was meant for developing countries, which should be a reality check for the UK.
Pretty much every distillery in Scotland could be making hand sanitizer. The reason they're not is they're still waiting for HMRC to change the duty regs so that your hand sanitizer doesn't cost the same as whisky /gin.
Pretty much every distillery in Scotland could be making hand sanitizer.
Many already are - the smaller, gin distilleries seem to be in full swing: Rock Rose, Harris and Inshriach amongst them.
HMRC to change the duty regs so that your hand sanitizer doesn’t cost the same as whisky /gin.
HMRC don't change duty regs, the government do.
From what I've seen, HMRC are turning themselves inside out to get the 80% salary and self employed benefit up and running
Apparently a lot of PPE is made in Italy, so that’s where it’s staying.
Local distilleries are making hand wash for our Trust. It’s just needs to be tested to make sure it does what it says on the tin and then will be used.
From what I understand the tax issue above is rubbish
This is the kind of stuff us waste of time NHS managers are currently trying to sort
Czech 3d printing pioneer Prusa apparently rapidly designed/prototyped a basic face-shield and has made & donated many to Czech Ministry of Health. Design available online for anyone to download.
https://www.3dnatives.com/en/prusa-medical-shields-covid-19-200320205/
People keep on asking me whether my work will be turning over to making ventilators and PPE and I have to say no - my work place are actually more of a design and assembly shop - all our fabricating is outsourced or bought-in. Even our related companies are all steel, aluminium, welding and machining. We've been told today though they they will be starting machining of plastic components for ventilators though, which warms my cockles. It will be inefficient but it will be something!
As @FunkyDunc says, a surprising amount of this stuff comes from Northern Italy, and they seem to have clusters of companies making similar products.
This is normally fine, though I can remember when we struggled for kidney machine disposables after an earthquake took out the part of Italy where EU supplies were made…
Many already are – the smaller, gin distilleries seem to be in full swing: Rock Rose, Harris and Inshriach amongst them.
I was wondering if that was more because you don't have to 'distill' gin* in the same way, you buy in azeotropic alcohol, add botanicals, distill it together to extract the good stuff and you're done. So a Gin distillery is more likely to have IBC of alcohol laying arround.
Some do ferment their own wash but that takes time and wouldn't be very efficient way of making hand sanitizer when you could buy industrial alcohol much quicker. Hand sanitizer is just alcohol, water, peroxide and glycerin.
We've become very efficient in the UK at manufucturing niche equipment often with high levels of automation that is designed for a very specific job. Ignore the regulatory stuff, the getting paid stuff, there are very few people in the UK who could produce high volumes of PPE.
I'm not sure what the obsession is with hand sanitiser. We were perfectly good at fighting infection before the 1990's hand gel obsession. Soap and Water is effective against coronavirus. Obviously there are places where hand gels might be more practical (like for a police officer on the front line).
We could probably define rules for who gets which of our scarce commodities, but it seems if you are the right person you can get corona tests even if you only have mild symptoms (or your wife has none)...
We're 3d printing parts for a batch of those Prusa shields^. And we're coordinating a group of other companies and individuals who are also making components.
We being 76 Projects.