I was president of the IET for 2016-17, and have been asked by government to gather practical and innovative ideas from our Engineering communities. So, please enter any ideas you might have in this thread that might help address and mitigate the Covid-19 crisis. Ideas might include digital tracking / monitoring through therapy equipment and beyond. Even ideas outside your usual expertise domain will be welcome. Now’s the time for Engineering to show we can change the world!
If the PEIs and EC could facilitate links between suppliers of medical equipment who are unable to meet demand, and manufacturers with strong experience in safety critical / mission critical equipment who could subcontract supply them then that would be a great service.
.... The challenge is helping the right people find each other
...we’ll be working with Innovate UK and other organisations to try and connect those of The government is looking for businesses who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the UKyou able to respond or adapt to the UK’s new challenges. From rapid scaling up of the manufacture of ventilators (if you can help, click here for details of how to apply) and other medical supplies, to supporting the wider population and economy to adapt to face challenging new situations.
The linked government web page states:
The government is looking for businesses who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the UK...
but there's no information to indicate what constitutes "ventilator components". I can see two problems with this: 1/ companies won't know if they have something useful, 2/ it will lead to unsuitable companies offering help, thus wasting time triaging applications.
The Manufacturer also has a blog page claiming to have "all the information you need", but it merely restates what's on the government's page.
The IET, other professional institutions and their respective publication channels could play an important role via our expert panels and wider networks collating and reviewing information to make sure it is useful from a technical perspective and keeping it up to date.
If the PEIs and EC could facilitate links between suppliers of medical equipment who are unable to meet demand, and manufacturers with strong experience in safety critical / mission critical equipment who could subcontract supply them then that would be a great service.
This will be challenging for manufacturers of medical equipment who are not set up to manage third party manufacturing in terms of regulatory compliance, again the PEIs and EC could facilitate linking such manufacturers with appropriate training / consultancy organisations.
In the railway signalling industry I know of cases where we've used manufacturers of medical equipment as sub suppliers, on the basis that they have experience in the control of manufacture of life critical equipment. So it ought to be able to work the other way around given some determination to make it work. The challenge is helping the right people find each other.
