Ford is giving a look inside its Michigan factory where workers are producing 100,000 face shields per week to help protect healthcare wor...
Ford is giving a look inside its Michigan factory where workers are producing 100,000 face shields per week to help protect healthcare workers on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak.
On Tuesday, employee Pat Tucker took the Today Show inside the auto giant's million-square foot facility in Dearborn where staff work 10 hours a day, seven days a week producing the shields.
The grandmother, 55, sits spaced out from her co-workers as they construct the face shields - with one being assembled every 10 seconds. They are made from components produced in Ford's 3D printers.
Ford says it will soon be able to ship 40,000 shields per day - a godsend for doctors and nurses who face a critical shortage of protective equipment that helps reduce their chances of contracting COVID-19.
'I'd rather save lives than sit at home,' Tucker told the NBC program, stressing that the factory has implemented proper health precautions.
'I'm happy to help, if they get another idea for us to make something, I'm going to be here,' she added.
Meanwhile, Ford is repurposing a separate factory west of Detroit to start building simple ventilators to treat coronavirus patients.
On Tuesday, Ford employee Pat Tucker took the Today Show inside the auto giant's million-square foot facility in Dearborn where she works 10 hours a day, seven days a week producing face shields for healthcare workers on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak
The grandmother, 55, sits spaced out from her co-workers as they construct the face shields - with one being assembled every 10 seconds
The mammoth production effort is taking place inside Ford's giant factory in Dearborn, Michigan
The automaker says that starting the week of April 20, it expects to produce 50,000 by Independence Day on July 4.
Some 500 United Auto Workers union members will be working around the clock to complete the mammoth assignment at the facility.
The ventilators are designed by Airon Corp, and Ford says they will work on air pressure, rather than electricity, and can handle the needs of most COVID-19 patients.
Meanwhile, the auto giant is also working with GE Healthcare to quickly double production of a more sophisticated ventilator at a factory in Madison, Wisconsin.
Fellow automarker General Motors is gearing up to produce ventilators at their factory in Kokomo, Indiana.
Fellow automarker General Motors is gearing up to produce ventilators at their factory in Kokomo, Indiana (pictured)
A thousand employees are working to produce 10,000 critical care ventilators per month in collaboration with, Ventec Life Systems, a small manufacturer of the machines.
Although the collaboration began back on March 19, President Trump publicly lashed out at the auto giant Friday claiming that the company wasn't working fast enough.
'As usual with 'this' General Motors, things just never seem to work out. They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, 'very quickly'. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar,' he blasted.
The Commander-in-chief invoked the Defense Production Act to push the car company to produce more ventilators.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Ford revealed it was postponing its plan to restart production at its North America plants due to safety concerns for its workers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
To generate cash, the No. 2 U.S. automaker had said last week it was poised to restart production at some plants in North America as early as April 6, bringing back such profitable vehicles as its top-selling F-150 full-sized pickup, the Transit commercial van and SUVs.
But on Tuesday, Ford said that although it had been aiming to resume production at several key U.S. plants on April 14, it would now do so at dates to be announced later on.
'The health and safety of our workforce, dealers, customers, partners and communities remains our highest priority,' Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford's North American operations, said in a statement.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus crisis is worsening in the US, with more than 164,000 confirmed cases and upwards of 3000 deaths.