Cummins Is Using Wisconsin Facility To Aid Respirator Production During COVID-19 Outbreak
Cummins Inc. announced Tuesday that it is contributing toward the nationwide effort to produce urgently needed medical equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic by making particulate filters for 3M Co. respirators.
Production of the high-efficiency particulate filters at Cummins Filtration Inc.'s Wisconsin facility is expected to begin by the end of April. The effort could potentially more than double the production of filters for 3M's powered air-purifying respirators, Cummins said.
Unlike disposal N95 masks, powered air-purifying respirators use a battery-powered blower to send filtered air into a hood that covers a health care worker's entire head or face.
3M in a news release said the respirators could provide increased levels of respiratory protection, especially for critical health care situations. The company said the respirators may be ideal for those who need protection for a long period of time.
Tom Linebarger, chairman and chief executive officer of Cummins, said the Columbus, Indiana, company has been looking for ways to help out during the crisis.
"Working with 3M, we discovered our technologies and manufacturing expertise could be relevant as we partner in new ways to help protect health care professionals," he said in a news release.
Cummins Filtration is a wholly owned business unit of Indiana-based Cummins Inc. The unit headquarters is in Nashville. Cummins' filtration business designs, manufactures and sells air, fuel, hydraulic and lube filtration for diesel and gas-powered engines.
In March, the business unit in a separate effort donated filter material to a research team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities to make prototypes of an N95 respirator mask alternative.
For 3M, Cummins' filtration business plans to use existing labor and equipment at the Wisconsin facility to assemble, manufacture and test the filters. The filters will be shipped to Valley, Nebraska, where 3M manufactures powered air-purifying respirators.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump criticized 3M for its ability to meet the demand for N95 respirator masks needed to protect domestic health care workers from the person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus, USA Today reported.
The company pushed back, saying it had gone above and beyond to make respirators and raised concerns about the humanitarian impact of a White House request to cease exports of respirators to Canada and Latin America.
3M later announced it had struck a deal with the Trump administration to import 166.5 million respirators from overseas to the U.S. in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The company said it began ramping up production of N95 masks and other respirators in January to increase global output to 1.1 million, including 35 million a month in the United States. 3M said it made additional investments and actions that would double capacity again to 2 billion globally within 12 months, with additional capacity to come online in the next 60 to 90 days.
In a news release, the company added that it expects to produce N95 respirators at a rate of 50 million per month in June in the United States, a 40% increase over current levels.
Ford begins producing a new powered air-purifying respirator design for 3M this week. The automaker has been embedded in 3M manufacturing facilities to help increase production since March.
3M isn't the only manufacturer President Trump has criticized. Last month, the president accused General Motors on Twitter of backtracking on the number of ventilators it vowed to produce in response to the pandemic.
GM intends to use its Kokomo Component Holdings facility to help Seattle-based Ventec Life Systems to ramp up ventilator production.
