UK ventilator challenge ends after making over 13,000 devices

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VentilatorChallengeUK, the manufacturing consortium established to address an anticipated shortage of ventilators for treating COVID-19 patients, has made its final shipment of finished ventilators.

Formed on 19 March in response to the anticipated escalation in COVID-19 cases, the consortium of UK aerospace, motorsport, automotive and medical businesses has more than doubled the UK’s stock of ventilators by scaling up the production of an existing system – Smiths Group’s portable paraPac ventilator – and a ventilator adapted from anaesthesia equipment produced by Oxfordshire firm Penlon.

During the project, which was led by High Value Manufacturing Catapult chief executive Dick Elsy, seven new large-scale manufacturing facilities were established from scratch at Airbus AMRC Cymru in Broughton, Ford in Dagenham, GKN Aerospace in Luton and Cowes, McLaren in Woking, RollsRoyce in Filton and STI in Hook.

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The  consortium also set- up new parallel supply chains and acquired around 42 million parts and electronic components through a complex logistics network that saw DHL design and implement an end-to-end supply chain in only 1.5 weeks

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