Design Simplification and Mass Production in “Wartime”: The Case for Ventilators
If you were an alien explorer with human intuition visiting planet Earth it would look like partly submerged in a war, except without structural devastation and human carcasses piled on the streets. Many countries in the world have declared “war” against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which is killing thousands, straining hospital services and raising ethical questions. A significant morbidity that results from Covid-19 is respiratory failure and an important tool used to managed it is the ventilator. The modern ventilator is a complex piece of equipment but a simplified version that can quickly be mass-produced will still get the job done. That is exactly what a team at Oxford University in the UK is designing and plans to make it free for anybody to produce and use. Another team at MIT has filed an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA for another simple design that uses Ambu-bags and other readily available components. IKEA’s business model shows that a product with a simple design that is cheap can be equally effective. Following an FDA greenlight, people are using creative ways to circumvent the current shortage in ventilators, like instant 3-D printed addons. Companies like General Motors and Ford switched their production lines and were pivotal in the mass production campaign that made almost two-thirds of all the Allied military equipment during World War II. If effective, I’m confident that these and other companies can mass produce these simplified ventilators as well. The post Covid-19 world necessitates a rebirth of American manufacturing.
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