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Am I the only one who as ever worked in a factory?

ByJ. Kb

Mar 19, 2020

Welcome to Twitter, where everyone is an idiot but has an opinion.

Some shmuck went after Elon Musk to make ventilators for the Coronavirus crisis.

https://twitter.com/suhaylabbas/status/1240485610466480128

Elon Musk responded.

Idiot after idiot then dumped on him for this.

That’s enough, you get the idea.

I have worked as a production engineer in a factory for a number of years.  Do any of these assholes have any fucking clue how long it takes to tool up a factory?  I’m not just talking about switching from one item to a similar item, like Ford making changes to cars for the new model year.  I mean going from producing cars and rocket parts to ventilators?

Programing CNC machines.  Ordering new tools for those machines.  Getting new molds for plastic injection molding equipment.

When we ordered tooling from major suppliers, there was a solid six month lead time.  Then there is always development time making sure your tooling works and produces parts to spec.  There is an engineering process for this, it’s called PPAP (production part approval process), and that can take months.

That assumes they have a design already.  Where are they going to get one of those, or are they going to design their own?  Maybe they buy the rights to produce a ventilator made by Stryker or another major biotech firm, they still have to get every drawing and spec.

I haven’t even touched on the circuit boards or electronic packages that drive them.

Then add in the fact that this is a medical device, so there are certain regulatory standards that have to be met.  Even if the FDA rushes those, safety and efficacy must be established.  It does no good to put ventilators into service that kill the patients.

All medical equipment must be sterilized, ventilators are no different.  How is this going to be done?  Either equipment must be purchased or companies that do sterilization and packaging of medical devices must ramp up throughput, but that can only be done to a certain extent because equipment must be held at temperature or in the cleaning chemicals or radiation for a certain period of time to work.

Just to update a car to a new model, is a two to five year process.

Even if Elon Musk went to his gigafactory and started beating his workers with a riding crop and pulled a Bezos and told them they couldn’t even take pee breaks.  This is not something that they could just turn on and have Tesla brand ventilators rolling off the assembly line in a couple of weeks.

Then there is this Tweet:

I want to make this crystal clear.  My doctorate in 3-D printing of medical devices.  Really, it is.  I’ve been published in peer-reviewed journals on the topic.

3-D printing is not magic.  It drives me up the wall when people with no one with a technical understanding of what 3-D printing is, talks about it like this.

What sort of masks are they printing?  How?  What do they use to seal them?  What is the filtration system?

If Musk really wanted to help, the fastest way he could would probably be to devote some of his equipment to be a domestic supplier of parts to a medical device manufacturer.  I can’t think of any of them that produce everything they need in house.  Ask the current ventilator manufacturers what the bottlenecks are and what parts they need, especially any parts that come from overseas.  That sort of subcontract work is easier and would allow current medical device manufacturers to increase their output.

But the idea that a guy who owns a factory can turnkey to a major piece of medical equipment by the end of the week and he’s an asshole if he doesn’t makes my head spin.

Spread the love

By J. Kb

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17 thoughts on “Am I the only one who as ever worked in a factory?”

  2. I’m gonna 3D print a new car with multiple air filtration systems, and a storm shelter so I will be safe. You know, a friend made an observation that hit me. He said, imagine if the media was doing this same exact coverage of auto accidents and fatalities. Every DAY they would have people interviewing survivors of crashes, they would tell us how many people died in the last 24 hours, they would have maps showing where the most crashes occurred.
    And so on.

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  3. Really, you mean Elon Musk doesn’t have a magician on staff, he should fire his whole Human Resources Department. What kind of circus are those people running? Hire a magician immediately and start production of ventilators by Monday.

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    1. Or for that matter the Liberator.
      But keep in mind that guns are fairly simple mechanical devices, and all those companies were specialists in the manufacture of precision mechanical devices.
      If you’re in the sheet metal stamping and spotwelding business — which is what Tesla does — making parts like equipment cases for other purposes is plausible. Making whole ventilators, which have piles of electronics in them, is not. Much less masks or gowns; they have neither the knowledge nor the equipment to do that.

      On the other hand, Levi Strauss would if it had any US factories. Today’s WSJ has an article that mentions a French blue jeans maker that switched to making cloth face masks, exactly as was discussed right here yesterday.

      Reply

    2. I see your point, but… guns are much simpler machines, with a smaller variety of parts (quantity and material) than than a ventilator, on a guess.

      Plus let’s not forget, IBM et al were getting paid to make the guns.

      Reply

    3. We entered WWII on December 7th 1941. We did not achieve peak WWII production until 1944. We had some increased production because of Lend Lease but it took between one year and 18 months to tool up our factories for wartime production.

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      1. OK, good points from all.
        Could be Tesla could quickly start turning out components for ventilators, but I don’t know that such components as they could make conveniently would be the ones that are in short supply.
        I kinda wonder if anyone outside of China even has the real, as-built plans (and firmware source code) for any of the current medical products.

        Reply

  5. 3d printing a mask is easy! Just print a solid shell formed to fit the face, seal the seams between mask and face with silicone and I assure you that the patient will not die of the Wuhan-virus.

    —

    I worked in quality control. Even small changes could lead to days or weeks of faulty products.

    You know, I know, we know – but we are not loud and obnoxius about it. That’s why we don’t get publicity 😀

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  6. I was going to bring up the issue of cleanliness. I’ve worked in two 40+ year old business with facilities matching or exceeding the business existence. Let’s just say inches of debris on the pipes up in the rafters is not an understatement. It don’t get cleaned because it don’t have to and you’re talking about businesses that have weathered multiple generation changes in mentality, personnel, and business and manufacturing practices. Let’s just say on the “old” days (as recently as this millennium) things were much less controlled, more relaxed, and more roll with the punches or make it up as we go.

    Tesla is newer so they probay aren’t as dirty but with the exception of the rocket parts, their facilities probably aren’t designed with the extreme cleanliness and sterile working conditions required in mind.

    Reply

  7. It took between 9 and 12 months for the United States to convert from a civilian industrial base to a wartime one. Some industries had a head start supplying arms and equipment to England and to a lesser extent China, but in general, for the U.S, 1942 was a “run what ya’ brung” war.

    If one focuses on firearms, the numbers show that the vast majority of weapons produced were from government arsenals, and traditional arms makers. The manufacturers that were not traditional arms makers provided great service supplying components to feed the arms industry, but not so much completed weapons. Just look at the premium collectors are willing to pay for a Singer made 1911A1 versus a Colt made one, due to the scarcity of the Singer made pistols.

    Reply

  8. Another issue they don’t think about is the exact same one that happened with the bombers in WW2 – Got to staff them. The need doctors and nurses, which we probably don’t have for the ventilators we have.

    Damn thing ain’t gonna run itself. You aren’t going to stick a hose down your gullet yourself, and pair the thing with your mobile.

    Reply

    1. Techiedude: THIS!!!!

      Is Elon gonna rapid prototype a competent ICU nurse, or 10,000?

      True fact: a up-to-speed ICU nurse can, maybe, run 2 vent patients each shift, if things stay copasetic. Sooo: 12 hour shifts into 7 days means 4 RNs for every 2 ICU vent patients, if and only if nobody takes sick. 10,000 vents, that weren ‘t there last month? You just have yourself the job of prestidigitating 20,000 graduated, licensed, experienced RNs. In the next, what? 2 months?

      Nursing school is 2 years, rock bottom minimum. Once out of school, it takes, say, 2 years of you are smart, motivated, and on the ball, to get to the point that you can solo in a unit.

      These things, I know. Among my dress is “RN”, and “BSN”. I spent a couple years working ICU. Nobody is gonna shit out ready-to-rock-and-roll ICU vent capable nurses.On

      And I haven’t even touched on the docs-intensivists-who make the medical decisions.

      Our lean, nearly-in-time systems will turn around to bite our asses.

      Go long on lube. We’re gonna really, really want it.

      Reply

  10. Just more screaming from the know nothing-do nothing crowd… they wont be using any of THEIR money to help out so they scream endlessly for other people to do something

    Reply

  11. I have an old bike tire pump, I am going to start turning old pumps into ventilators, manual ventilators but I think I can get it to work. I need a volunteer so I can cut their throat to put the hose in.

    Reply

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