JCB to assist with manufacturing ventilator in fight against COVID-19

ventilator
JCB Chief Innovation and Growth Officer Tim Burnhope pictured with the ventilator housing prototypes.

In the United Kingdom, JCB is poised to begin production at a factory that closed as a result of the Coronavirus crisis. However, now the factory will join the global effort to manufacture ventilators.

JCB received a direct appeal from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in March to help plug the national ventilator shortage and to help save lives of COVID-19 patients.

Following the request, JCB Chairman Lord Bamford promised to help in any way the company could and immediately mobilized a research and engineering team to examine potential ways to assist.

Instead of making cabs for JCB equipment, the JCB factory in the UK, which closed for 2 weeks due to the virus, is being mobilized to make special steel housings for a brand-new design of ventilator from Dyson.

A minimum of 10,000 of the JCB housings are earmarked for manufacture once Dyson receives regulatory approval for its design.

The first prototypes of the housings have been delivered to Dyson after rolling off the production line at JCB’s $62 million Cab Systems factory in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, which Boris Johnson visited during his election campaign.

RELATED: CCA outlines standardized protocols for COVID-19

The factory fell silent on March 18th along with eight other JCB UK manufacturing plants after a fall in demand caused by COVID-19. Mass production of the housings could start in a matter of days.

“When we were approached by the Prime Minister we were determined, as a British company, to help in any way we could,” Bamford said.

“This project has gone from design to production in just a matter of days and I am delighted that we have been able to deploy the skills of our talented engineering, design and fabrication teams so quickly at a time of national crisis. This is also a global crisis, of course, and we will naturally help with the production of more housings if these ventilators are eventually required by other countries.”

JCB’s response to the call to action would see the return to work for around 50 employees in the United Kingdom, affected by an extended company shutdown announced in late March.