Posted on 04/07/2020 11:07:24 AM PDT by PGR88
Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) is leveraging the same material it uses for air, fuel and lubrication filtration in diesel engines as feedstock for much-needed N95 respirator masks worn by healthcare workers treating coronavirus patients.
“Our technical leadership knew it was capable and when we started seeing shortages we said “‘Wow, maybe this is an opportunity for us to fill a void,’” Amy Davis, vice president of Cummins Filtration, told FreightWaves.
An N95 designation means the respirator can block at least 95% of particles from entering the wearer’s nose and mouth.
Cummins Filtration Inc., based in Nashville, Tennessee, could provide enough NanoNet Media to create several millions masks a month. The media comes from South Korea and is manufactured for global customers at plants in Cookeville, Tennessee, and Neillsville, Wisconsin, as well as Mexico and Australia.
“This got started conceptually for us back in February when the crisis first started happening and folks started shipping masks from India into China,” Davis said. “The kind of media we’ve been using in fuel systems over the past couple of years got more and more finely turned and so it is more suitable for medical and different kinds of fields.”
(Excerpt) Read more at freightwaves.com ...
Hate to be the one to point this out, but, your truckers are going to still need diesel filters.
At least if you want to continue to eat.
The ingenuity and intelligence of Americans (including their business organizations) always impresses me.
This is also an example of exactly why you do NOT want nationalized health care. A society needs many dispersed and independent sources of ideas, innovation and supply. We saw how the CDC failed on creating a useful test for the vaccine. Luckily, America’s dispersed knowledge at various universities and private industry were able to step up and fill the gap caused by the central planners.
In the article, it explains that 1) Cummins was already looking for other uses for this material, and 2) with Coronavirus shut-downs, they now have extra capacity.
private enterprise ingenuity!
With government central management it is entirely possible that we could end up with vast warehouses of unused ventilators and masks and shortages of basic spare parts needed to keep the economy running.
Happened in the USSR all the time.
I was thinking of using a coffee filter for my mask.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like a mask, please."
"Year?"
"Year? Uhhhh, '61."
"What size engine?"
"What size...? No, It's not for my...."
"6 cylinder or 8?"
"6 or what? No, I......"
"Automatic or stick?"
"What? Neither. I just need...."
"New or remanufactured?"
"New, I guess. You guys sell remanu...."
"You want the extended warranty on that?"
"Extended warranty? On a mask? You know what? Forget it. Just give me a diesel filter."
"I'm sorry, sir, we're all out of diesel filters. Here's a mask."
Actually a coffee filter can make a good mask.
Kudos to Cummins, but I’ll temper that with this.
I spoke Saturday with an old friend who happens to be a PhD chemist and chemical engineer with a solid background in non-woven polymer chemistry and production. He said his old company (a name you’d probably recognize) has US production lines that could make 12’ rolls of the raw material at over 1000’ per minute. We’re talking literally many acres of the stuff in a very short time.
The point being that the raw material isn’t the issue, it’s the further cutting, shaping, attaching elastic bands, boxing, shipping, that is the issue here. Raw materials not so much.
It’s interesting to me that private enterprise is being asked to fill the gap after government dropped the ball. But of course they receive no credit for doing so.
Cool!
Love it!!!
I can clearly see that shipping our manufacturing to China has taken self-sufficiency away at all levels.
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