VENTILATOR CHALLENGE UK JULY/AUGUST 2020
CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY
The Ventilator Challenge UK consortium, formed in the early days of the COVID-19
crisis, has been the shining example of how industry has stepped up to meet the
challenges of the past few months. To fi nd out more, Manufacturing Management
spoke to the group’s leader – and chief executive of the HVM Catapult – Dick Elsy
BY CHRIS BECK
Back in March, alarming
news broke that there
was a genuine risk that
the UK may be about to
face a critical shortage
of medical equipment,
with the NHS creaking under
the ever-growing number of
COVID-19 cases. Everything
from face masks and hand
sanitiser to highly complex
ventilators and other respiratory
equipment was urgently needed
as cases rose exponentially
across the country.
While deals were struck for
equipment from overseas –
including an infamous shipment
of 400,000 gowns from Turkey
that the government later
admitted were not of a suffi cient
standard to actually be used –
the nation’s manufacturers set
to work doing their bit to meet
demand. Companies of all sizes
mucked into what has probably
been the leading example of the
industry pulling together since
World War II.
The largest such contribution
has come from the Ventilator
Challenge UK, a consortium of
more than 30 manufacturers,
ranging from F1 teams to
medical technology fi rms, plus
a network of suppliers and
academic advisors, that came
together to produce rapidly
ramp up the production of the
ventilators required to treat
those most severely aff ected
by the virus. The scale of
the group’s achievement is
staggering – producing over 10
years’ worth of ventilators in just
10 weeks.
High Value Manufacturing Catapult. When MM
spoke to Elsy in mid-June, the group was beginning
to wind down (see Round-Up, p8), and he was able
to refl ect on a whirlwind few months.
Taking a gamble
It all began during a Zoom call on 16 March
invoving over 100 of the UK’s leading
manufacturers and the Cabinet Offi ce, which saw
the formal launch of a specifi cation for a rapidly
manufactured ventilator system.
“Cabinet Offi ce Minister Michael Gove
presented the spec and then just said ‘right, over
to you’,” recalls Elsy.
During the ensuing “vacuum of silence”, Elsy’s
“Catapult instinct” saw him put his hand up and
off er to make some enquiries. “I made some calls
to others who had expressed an interest,” he says.
“It was principally those who were willing to take
a corporate – and personal – risk to do something
their business wouldn’t normally do.”
Over the coming days, a band of manufacturers
was assembled to take on the challenge. Straight
away, Elsy was adamant that there was
no room for passengers. “The criteria
for entry were simple,” he says. “If
you’re going to be ‘in’, you have to be all
in. You have to be prepared to commit
resources, time and eff ort. At that time,
we weren’t sure how we were going to be
remunerated, or even where we’d get the
money from, so we were asking companies
to take a massive gamble.”
Addressing the challenge
At the time, other groups of companies were
looking at ways of producing all-new ventilator
systems and building them from scratch. The
Ventilator Consortium, however, took a diff erent
approach. “We asked ourselves, ‘what’s the
quickest route to market?’,” says Elsy. “The task
was to produce as much as possible, safely and
quickly, and we realised that we’d be best served
by getting behind an existing manufacturer.”
The group identifi ed two potential candidates:
Luton-based Smiths Industries, which makes a
portable paramedic device, and the Prima ESO2,
a ventilator design adapted from anaesthesia
equipment produced by Oxfordshire fi rm Penlon.
Inset: Sta at Airbus’ Broughton
plant work on critical parts for
the Penlon ventilator
Steering the
ship throughout
has been Dick
Elsy, CEO of the
18 www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
Paul Thomas/Bloomberg
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk