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What did we learn from the "open source ventilator" mess.......
CatalinaWOW:
I've been through production ramp up on equipment with quality controls. The analogy often used is making babies. You want 100,000 babies it is pretty easy to line up the means of production. But there is this one critical nine month process step. No matter how big you make the pipe or how hard you push it, it takes most of a year before product starts flowing.
In the real case the process steps are usually not as long, nor as impossible to change, but there are many more of them. A moment's inattention and the whole thing slams to a halt.
DrG:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on July 10, 2020, 02:55:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: Smokey on July 10, 2020, 12:33:30 pm ---The Medtronic guys certainly know how to make a ventilator, but that doesn't mean they know how to make a new model ventilator super quickly.
--- End quote ---
Nobody is saying they had to make a new design, just make more of what they already produced.
Let's be serious here, if it was that important, like war-time important, like everyone-dying important, the government could have made that production happen.
There was literally nothing stopping that production happening but government mandated shutdowns and fear.
Let's be practical, whether those mythical 100,000 units came from backyard labs or from existing manufacturers, it still requires very similar levels of local and global logistics to make that happen.
Remember, even during the worst of this whole thing, people were still working keeping society running, by several accounts up to 40% of the workforce were still out there doing their thing. This could have included emergency manufacture of medical equipment if it was so mandated.
--- End quote ---
Well, a couple of things come to mind and I may be wrong. BLUF:Sometimes companies and governments are too big to get the job done quickly and efficiently. It is sometimes hard to get out of their own way. Sad as that is.
I have always enjoyed reading about the Manhattan project. I remember seeing a Government person (it may have been military, I can't remember) talking about it in a documentary. This particular documentary featured the amazing coalescence of effort that was required. The individual noted that today, we could probably not get the environmental impact statement completed in the time that the entire project took - sobering.
Ventilator shortage was recognized well before Covid and at the time of SARS and through EBOLA, the US was apparantly trying to find a solution see: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html
Medtronic did, in fact, ramp up production (by 40% according to this press release in March - http://newsroom.medtronic.com/news-releases/news-release-details/correction-medtronic-continuing-increase-ventilator-production).
SparkyFX:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on July 09, 2020, 07:35:16 am ---I'm saying that if the government put in a huge order Medtronics (and others) could have ramped up production, and done so vastly easier and quicker and to certification than anyone dicking around with the source files they released.
--- End quote ---
It was a move that got them out of the line of fire, because they (as all medical device manufacturers) probably have or see a very limited ability to ramp up and still need to supply customers in the future. At the same time they avoid allegations to work by market rules (law of supply and demand) in times of a crisis. Money might not even be a thing when a government is involved, unless someone tries to make it "a deal".
I guess they could make more test equipment themselves and ship it, unless calibration is involved the type of part required is basically in their machines anyway or because they have spare parts to keep the few they have running. Unfortunately outsourcing this kind of work is also a typical thing to do in the industry.
Maybe the ventilators even have a built in self test to be used while in service. Two machines might even be able to proof each other during a burn in phase to take that out of the equation, but that was probably never in the spec sheet. But yeah, without a proper test jig even the whole license build is too risky to do.
There might be more limiting factors, like fixed times to dissipate chemicals involved (plastic softening agents, glue) or certain parts built to order (e.g. injection molded plastic). I don't think hiring employees or standard parts are a limiting factor as during lock down unemployment went up anyway, although the request was before that.
That NASA can pull their own device off is no wonder, they know how to supply oxygen to people in a vacuum, have experience with these parts and their complications and most medical requirements.
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