Manufacturing COVID PPE Gear at Warp Speed

When COVID-19 caught the nation off guard, we had to find new ways of thinking and doing things. That’s the American way, and few companies define our national spirit like the Ford Motor Company.

Ford Motor Company began manufacturing personal protection equipment (PPE) face masks and face shields in April 2020 at its European plants.  This protected its workers and has evolved into a larger initiative. The effort to produce face masks and face shields has been part of Ford’s Project Apollo, a global effort to mass produce personal protection equipment (PPE).
 
Electrical Health at the Heart of Making PPE
Making PPE has automated equipment humming just as fast. And so it will be once the mass production and distribution of vaccines begins. Similarly, Operation Warp Speed has produced vaccines to achieve what many said was impossible in such a short amount of time. Vaccine production and distribution will require the same demands on workers and equipment.

Now that the health of the workers has been addressed, the equipment behind the manufacturing process relies on “electrical health”.  At the heart of manufacturing are motor control systems that need electrical parts to start and stop the process. These parts routinely need regular maintenance and replacement as necessary.
 
Ford Motor Company Relies on Electrical Parts Supply
The need for small but essential electrical parts suddenly becomes urgent when the production line’s electrical system has a problem.  Manufacturers like Ford Motor save time and get technical support by contacting knowledge-based, niche suppliers of electrical parts. These parts include electrical contacts that open and close to interrupt the supply of power to equipment.

Electrical contacts are small, yet the demand for them is significant. Facilities save time and money when they don’t have to carry thousands of parts for all their equipment in their own inventory.  For motor control parts, they rely on providers like Marlton, NJ-based REPCO for fast order fulfillment from a replacement parts inventory for more than 36 industrial motor control manufacturers.

Henry Ford would be pleased to see how his company’s original idea is saving lives. He once said: “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking”. And “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself”. His company has kept true to this word.