Newsnight and ventilators.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Slightly more on topic for this group.

Newsnight had a bit on ventilator production last night. Including an interesting interview with an actual maker. Who sadly said he'd had little or no contact from the government, but he and his suppliers were ramping up production as fast as they could, including investing large sums of their own money. But as with all such things, some parts made in house or locally, some imported.

It would seem to me you'd approach an existing maker and give them the authority to get bits made by larger manufacturers like Dyson etc and all the other help they need - since they already have a design known to work and approved and all the drawings, etc.

Rather like they did with Jeeps, army trucks and some RR engines etc during WW2

The idea of going to someone like Dyson might be fine if time wasn't of the essence.

The Newsnight piece was very unusual in that there was an interview with someone in the cabinet. Can't remember the last time Newsnight had that. Nadhim Zahawi. Who only wanted to answer the questions he wanted to hear. And Maitlis who only wanted to score points, as usual.

[Andy Bennet]

Dyson are already on the way for the production of 10,000 ventilators.

[T i m]

<snip>

Including many suppliers in Europe and some in China. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[Pamela]

[Jethro_uk]

Well, they *say* they are. So that useful idiots parrot the phrase across the public consciousness, before the "but actually ..." bit is realised.

[charles]

Erm, they have an order for 10,000.

[nothanks]

Yes, I'm surprised that the owners of IPR for an existing design haven't been asked to grant a licence to other manufacturers for the duration of the "emergency". Why re-invent wheels?

[polygonum_on_google]

Even if they had 10,000 already made, they cannot be used until the design has been proved.

[Jethro_uk]

There were some Italians who worked out how to 3D print an essential part of a ventilator, until they were served with a cease-and-desist from the patent holders.

[Scott]

Could this not be overcome by emergency powers (or even consent)? If I were given a choice of no ventilator or the opportunity to test a ventilator I know what I would choose.

[nothanks]

Staggering! I rather wish I hadn't found out about that. An interesting quote "the original part retails at around $11,000 and the 3D-printed parts cost just $1 to make"

[Robin]

AIUI his company doesn't make ventilators as such but does supply parts to those who do (as well as supply lots of other medical equipment).

As so often, it's difficult to know what to make of it. I thought it was a pity Maitlis was so keen in building a case against HMG that she didn't ask him why he had waited to hear from government and hadn't just got in touch with a partner firm that he knew could ramp up supplies. The one thing I do know with c. 99.99 per cent confidence is that if there was a c*ck-up in not getting back to the firm it won't have been a Minister who failed to email/phone them, but that won't stop search for a gotcha question..

[harry]

There are lots of different sorts of ventilators. Basic ones are very simple.

[Jethro_uk]

But require a lot of twiddling by trained and experienced staff.

Complex ones are pretty much Plug and play, and can be used and set up by less skilled staff.

As with everything in life it's a trade off. It will be illuminating to see where the NHS traded off.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

I'm not too sure about this but we are pretty rubbish at exploiting things we ourselves invent, and so it comes as no surprise that they cannot manage their way out of a paper bag. Brian

[Pamela]

Good point. Assuming there are no trade secrets, the owner of an existing design could licence it to several manufacturers.

However that wouldn't fit with the Dyson image of super-clever British boffins delivering a world-beating design in a jiffy and showing onlookers how it should be done. Shades of WW2 Britain.

[nightjar]

On 26/03/2020 15:39, [e-mail] wrote: ...

The other advantage of an existing design is that it does not need to go through the approval process that any new design will have to.

[Steve Walker]

At a guess, maybe the new design is much easier to quickly produce in high quantities and doesn't require parts that are sourced from abroad. Otherwise I'm sure they would have done exactly as suggested.

The new design might be simpler, but less robust - large numbers of devices with short lives, but long enough. Whereas the existing designs will be aimed at long life and maintaining a high reliability over that extended period, without too much worry about how fast they can be produced.

You could even argue that reliability is less important - a few people dyeing due to failed ventilators compared to thousands due to lack of them.

SteveW

[Robin]

The NHS/PHE/civil service are capable of riding more than one horse at a time. The Airbus-led consortium is aiming to make existing designs.

[bert]

In article [e-mail]>, "Dave Plowman (News)" [e-mail]> writes

Then manufacture under licence. Quite agree. Why reinvent the wheel.