Ford is giving a look inside its Michigan factory where workers are producing 100,000 face shields per week to help protect healthcare wor...
Ford is giving a look inside its Michigan factory where workers are producing 100,000 face shields per week to help protect healthcare workers on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak.
On Tuesday, employee Pat Tucker took the Today Show inside the auto giant's million-square foot facility in Dearborn where staff work 10 hours a day, seven days a week producing the shields.
The grandmother, 55, sits spaced out from her co-workers as they construct the face shields - with one being assembled every 10 seconds. They are made from components produced in Ford's 3D printers.
Ford says it will soon be able to ship 40,000 shields per day - a godsend for doctors and nurses who face a critical shortage of protective equipment that helps reduce their chances of contracting COVID-19.
'I'd rather save lives than sit at home,' Tucker told the NBC program, stressing that the factory has implemented proper health precautions.
'I'm happy to help, if they get another idea for us to make something, I'm going to be here,' she added.
Meanwhile, Ford is repurposing a separate factory west of Detroit to start building simple ventilators to treat coronavirus patients.
On Tuesday, Ford employee Pat Tucker took the Today Show inside the auto giant's million-square foot facility in Dearborn where she works 10 hours a day, seven days a week producing face shields for healthcare workers on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak
The grandmother, 55, sits spaced out from her co-workers as they construct the face shields - with one being assembled every 10 seconds
The mammoth production effort is taking place inside Ford's giant factory in Dearborn, Michigan
Hospitals have put out an urgent plea for medical supplies, and this morning, automakers and their employees are coming to the rescue.@CynthiaMcFadden has the story of one Detroit grandmother pitching in at Ford: “I’d rather save lives than sit at home.”
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The automaker says that starting the week of April 20, it expects to produce 50,000 by Independence Day on July 4.
Some 500 United Auto Workers union members will be working around the clock to complete the mammoth assignment at the facility.
The ventilators are designed by Airon Corp, and Ford says they will work on air pressure, rather than electricity, and can handle the needs of most COVID-19 patients.
Meanwhile, the auto giant is also working with GE Healthcare to quickly double production of a more sophisticated ventilator at a factory in Madison, Wisconsin.
Fellow automarker General Motors is gearing up to produce ventilators at their factory in Kokomo, Indiana.
Fellow automarker General Motors is gearing up to produce ventilators at their factory in Kokomo, Indiana (pictured)
A thousand employees are working to produce 10,000 critical care ventilators per month in collaboration with, Ventec Life Systems, a small manufacturer of the machines.
Although the collaboration began back on March 19, President Trump publicly lashed out at the auto giant Friday claiming that the company wasn't working fast enough.
'As usual with 'this' General Motors, things just never seem to work out. They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, 'very quickly'. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar,' he blasted.
The Commander-in-chief invoked the Defense Production Act to push the car company to produce more ventilators.
HOW FORD'S FACE SHIELDS ARE MADE
Ford has partnered with 3M and GE Healthcare to assemble plastic face shields to distribute to emergency medical workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The shields are made with just three pieces: a transparent plastic face covering, a small strip of sponge to rest against the forehead, and a plastic band to fasten the shield around a person's head.
Ford created an original design for a plastic face shield (pictured above) to protect medical workers after receiving a call for help from the Mayo Clinic
The foam is fixed to the shield with adhesive tape, and the plastic head band is stapled to the shield in a process that takes less than 10 seconds per shield.
Ford has two shifts of workers manually assembling the shields, one day crew and another night crew, to maintain maximum productivity.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Ford revealed it was postponing its plan to restart production at its North America plants due to safety concerns for its workers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
To generate cash, the No. 2 U.S. automaker had said last week it was poised to restart production at some plants in North America as early as April 6, bringing back such profitable vehicles as its top-selling F-150 full-sized pickup, the Transit commercial van and SUVs.
But on Tuesday, Ford said that although it had been aiming to resume production at several key U.S. plants on April 14, it would now do so at dates to be announced later on.
'The health and safety of our workforce, dealers, customers, partners and communities remains our highest priority,' Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford's North American operations, said in a statement.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus crisis is worsening in the US, with more than 164,000 confirmed cases and upwards of 3000 deaths.
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