COVER STORY
Ronnie McDermott, National Medical
Device Equipment Advisor, HSE said:
“The Combi-Ventilate in addition to the
normal concept of splitting a ventilator
has added in monitoring and controls
for each patient so that provides the
clinician with assurances in using the
system. It will be very useful in the
developing world countries who may not
have the luxury to go out and purchase
many ventilators. Splitting a ventilator is
now a viable solution.
Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise
Ireland said: Irish companies are
innovating in response to the Covid-19
pandemic and it is exciting to see
Combilift, who have always been at the
forefront of innovation in the
forklift and handling sector, use its
manufacturing expertise to develop
the Combi-Ventilate, which will help
address the urgent global demand
for ventilators. I wish Combilift
success with the development of this
new product and we at Enterprise
Ireland look forward to continuing to
work with Combilift, and other Irish
companies, as they continue to
develop new and innovative solutions
in response to the crisis.”
Also responding to the ventilator
crisis was Bellurgan Precision
Engineering, A 40-year-old family
business in north Louth, which played
a vital role in making key parts for
ventilators as it switched all of its
manufacturing to supplying Medtronic,
the world’s largest medical device
company, which was doubling the
volume of ventilators made in its Galway
factory.
Bellurgan Precision Engineering has
been supplying parts for Medronic for
more than twenty years, and its CEO
Stephen said it was touched by the
response from their other customers,
who supported the decision to
concentrate on making ventilator parts.
He says: “Every one of them understood
why we had made that decision. We
knew that we were letting some of them
down badly, but they were just
amazing.”
The company’s campus on the edge of
Dundalk Bay became a veritable
construction site, as the overall space
has been increased by 50%, with the
addition of two new pre-fabricated
workspaces. This is in preparation for
the arrival of ten new, very large
state-of-the-art CNC machines, which
will be used alongside their existing
equipment to increase the production of
20 » JUNE 2020 » WWW.MADEIN.IE
ventilator parts from 5,000 to 6,000
units to over 30,000 units a year.
As part of its production eff ort, the
company urgently required a three-step
special drill for the production of
ventilator components As part of this
supply chain, Guhring stepped up to the
plate with the critical supply of cutting
tools. As a manufacturer with a factory
fl oor space of over 60,000ft², Guhring
UK is holding in excess of £5 million
worth of standard cutting tool stock
items.
This stock was directed to F1,
aerospace and medical OEMs involved
in ventilator component manufacture as
well as the subcontract supply chain. In
fact, with the impact of the pandemic on
imports and the wider supply chain,
Guhring is even supplying its products
to recognised cutting tool manufacturers
and competitors that cannot meet the
urgent demands of their customer base.
Bellurgan Precision Engineering,
urgently required a three-step special
drill for the production of ventilator
Above: The Randox testing kit
Left: Splitting a ventilator
components, Guhring responded –
delivering within 48 hours.
Within that 48-hour timeframe,
Guhring had liaised with Bellurgan,
designed and created a tool drawing
that was subsequently approved and
then the race was on. The Guhring
team manufactured 16 identical
tools at its Birmingham
headquarters and coated all tools
in-house with its Signum coating
technology before delivery.
Co. Antrim company Randox
also created 160 jobs for engineers
in response to the surge in
demand for its Covid-19 testing
kits.
Crumlin-based Randox Laboratories
became one the fi rst European fi rms to
develop a testing kit for coronavirus.
The company has been selling them
worldwide and is also now supplying the
UK Government.
Randox Laboratories therefore
announced a drive to recruit 160
mechanical, electrical and
manufacturing engineers to enhance its
capacity for COVID-19 testing. The
engineers, who began work at the
Randox Science Park from the middle of
May, are involved in the fast-tracked
development of specialist molecular
analysers used to detect the presence of
COVID-19.
These testing platforms will be used
to further enhance the government’s
national testing scheme for key workers,
as well as to facilitate testing more
broadly across the general populace.
Dr Peter FitzGerald, Managing
Director of Randox Laboratories,
commented: “It is Randox’s priority to
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