(April 14, 2020) DEARBORN, Mich., — Ford is expanding its efforts to design and produce urgently needed medical equipment and supplies for health care workers, first responders and patients fighting coronavirus. In addition to the current production of more than 3 million face shields in Plymouth, Mich., Ford-designed powered air-purifying respirator production begins Tuesday. Ford also is now producing face masks and leading an effort to scale production of reusable gowns for health care workers. Lastly, Ford started providing manufacturing expertise to help scientific instrument provider Thermo Fisher Scientific quickly expand production of COVID-19 collection kits to test for the virus.

“We knew that to play our part helping combat coronavirus, we had to go like hell and join forces with experts like 3M to expand production of urgently needed medical equipment and supplies, said Jim Baumbick, vice president, Ford Enterprise Product Line Management.

“In just three weeks under Project Apollo, we’ve unleashed our world-class manufacturing, purchasing and design talent to get scrappy and start making personal protection equipment and help increase the availability and production of ventilators.”

Ford and 3M collaborationleads to new PAPR


Since late March, Ford manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain experts have been embedded at 3M manufacturing facilities to help increase production of urgently needed products. With this additional help, 3M and Ford were able to increase the output of PAPRs and N95 respirators at 3M’s U.S.-based manufacturing facilities.

“3M is dedicated to helping to protect our heroic health care workers and first responders globally, including sharing our scientific expertise to increase supply of needed PPE,” said Bernard Cicut, vice president, 3M Personal Safety Division. “We are proud to stand together with Ford in this effort, as they have helped us increase manufacturing of existing 3M PPE products and, together, we have rapidly designed a new PAPR to help protect these heroes.”

Ford will start producing an all-new PAPR design to help protect health care professionals on the front lines fighting COVID-19. Rapidly designing components and prototyping in accordance with federal guidelines and with 3M expert support and guidance, Ford teams reduced PAPR development time to less than four weeks.

The newly designed PAPR includes a hood and face shield to cover health care professionals’ heads and shoulders, while a high-efficiency (HEPA) filter system provides a supply of filtered air for up to 8 hours. The air blower system – similar to the fan found in F-150’s ventilated seats – is powered by a rechargeable, portable battery, helping keep the respirator in constant use by first-line defenders.

The development team expects the respirator design will meet the pending National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) limited-use protocol to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency, with approval anticipated by the end of April.

Face mask production


Meanwhile, Ford is now manufacturing face masks for internal use globally and pursuing certification for medical use at its Van Dyke Transmission Plant. Face masks can help slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.

The CDC is now encouraging all U.S. residents to use masks to curb the spread of the virus.
Ford’s global manufacturing and purchasing teams quickly sourced the necessary materials and equipment from its network of equipment manufacturers around the world. Production began earlier this week.

Approximately 30 UAW paid volunteers will start making masks in the plant’s ISO Class 8 cleanroom, which is a controlled environment with extremely low levels of pollutants, enabling the safe production of face masks for medical use. Eventually, approximately 80 UAW paid volunteers will make masks as production increases.

Gown production


To help further protect health care workers, Ford is leading efforts to manufacture reusable gowns with airbag supplier Joyson Safety Systems. The go-fast project has created re-usable gowns manufactured from material used to make airbags in Ford vehicles.

Ford is helping scale production of collection kits for COVID-19 tests

Thermo Fisher’s engineering team at the company’s site in Lenexa, Kansas, realized their expertise, combined with the manufacturing expertise of Ford’s nearby Kansas City Assembly Plant engineering team, could help set up additional collection kit production machinery. The Ford team also helped Thermo Fisher adapt machinery that currently runs glass vials for other products to run plastic vials required in drive-through coronavirus test collection.

“Ford's engineers brought a fresh perspective to production expansion, and together, we'll more than triple the number of collection kits we can deliver each week starting April 20,” said John Reuss, senior director, microbiology business for Thermo Fisher. “It’s great to see different industries coming together to solve a common problem."