JCB received a direct appeal from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to help plug the national ventilator shortage and to help save lives of Coronavirus patients. Following the approach, JCB Chairman Lord Bamford promised to help in any way the company could and immediately mobilised a research and engineering team to examine potential ways to assist. Source: Timberbiz
Now JCB is ready to restart production at a factory that had been making cabs for JCB diggers, the plant is being mobilised 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 factory in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, which Boris Johnson visited during the election campaign.
Mass production of the housings could start in a matter of days.
When approached by the Prime Minister JCB was determined to help in any way. This project has gone from design to production in just a matter of days and the company says it is delighted that it has been able to deploy the skills of its 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.
