Aviation Companies Aiding Medical Manufacturing Drives

The airframe OEM has suspended parts of its production sites across the world but will turn some of its attentions to building ventilators. It will be one of the leaders of a consortium of industrial and engineering businesses comprised of companies from the aerospace, automotive and medical sectors. Known as the Ventilator Challenge UK consortium, the alliance will help design, manufacture, assemble and test components, along with completed medical ventilators. Overall, it will target the making of more than 10,000 ventilators in a matter of weeks. Airbus also plans to produce 3D-printed hospital visors in the fight against COVID-19.

British engine specialist Rolls-Royce, which runs a large aftermarket network including its patented TotalCare offering, is another big industry name joining the consortium. Rolls-Royce’s role in the consortium is to set up a parallel supply chain to feed in materials as quickly as possible to a new assembly plant being delivered by GKN.

The UK-headquartered aerospace equipment manufacturer, which operates an aftermarket service division offering Smart Support maintenance contracts, also became part of the Ventilator Challenge UK collective.

Defense manufacturing giant BAE Systems is also joining the UK effort and said it would support the challenge by “providing integrated, tested sub-systems and components.”

Thales, which has a dedicated avionics repair division, is another industry giant that has joined the Ventilator Challenge UK Consortium.

GKN's aerospace business, which runs an aftermarket services offering, set up production lines across its UK facilities last month to begin manufacture of medical ventilators.

At the end of March, avionics giant Honeywell said it would add face mask production to its Phoenix, Arizona engine facility and a site in Smithfield, Rhode Island. The moves proved a boon for jobs, with the company looking to add 1,000 people across both sites in order to produce the N-95 masks. Honeywell is targeting around six million being made.

Lufthansa Technik’s Virtual Table Inspection project allows customers to remotely attend the inspection of engine parts and no longer travel to Hamburg for it. For this purpose, they are guided directly through the engine shop by means of a mobile device allowing real-time communication with the engine mechanics performing the work.

Family-owned MRO Duncan Aviation is utilizing its upholstery teams at its facilities in Lincoln, Battle Creek and Provo to cut and sew masks for its teams as well as creating 1,000 additional masks to send to volunteers at two local churches. At the churches, the masks will be shared between local medical facilities.

After coming up with the idea in a staff meeting in late March, Piper Aircraft made a prototype of a plastic face shield designed for a local hospital. Following this, its teams manufactured more personal protective equipment for medical centers.