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“Dyson has had hundreds of engineers working round the clock to design the ventilators from scratch.” It blows my mind. Everybody now, instead of cooperating,

by lnsru 7y ago

“Dyson has had hundreds of engineers working round the clock to design the ventilators from scratch.” It blows my mind. Everybody now, instead of cooperating, tries to design a perfect ventilator.

ekianjo 7y ago
> instead of cooperating Sometimes cooperation takes a whole more time than doing things by yourself if you know exactly what needs to be done. Adding more groups/interactions typically slow down delivery.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mygo 7y ago
  Agreed. As I understand it, Dyson’s ventilators are ready for scaled production. Maybe they can begin to collaborate with others down the road, but time was essential, and they were clearly able to get these out without a lot of unnecessary phone tag.
jonplackett 7y ago
You have to consider, some of these might not get made in time or be unreliable. Having a few different baskets of eggs might be good.
altacc 7y ago
I know what you're saying, but in this instance there's a fairly good technology & manufacturing fit between ventilators and Dyson's other products. More so than some car manufacturers. Dyson's core business and knowledge involves small devices which move and filter air, often on battery power (yes, I'm simplifying!). So designing something that reuses their existing technology with minimal retooling of the factory might well be easier and quicker than adapting their factory to an existing design.
PJDK 7y ago
Dyson are working with Technology Partnership, a medical device manufacturer. Presumably they're working on a new design that takes advantage of the existing tooling and parts that Dyson have. There's another consortium working to ramp up production of existing designs - seems sensible to try both approaches.
- lnsru 7y ago
  This sounds convincing. Though Dyson’s products do not have much in common with medical equipment. Hair dryer or vacuum cleaner has other power level than ventilator for the lungs.
  - PJDK 7y ago
    That seems like a compelling case for a different design - doing something so that the existing motors can be used. Hopefully when all this blows over we'll have some interesting books and articles to read!
  - erinaceousjones 7y ago
    Well, both require lots of high grade flexible plastic tubing and benefit from things like HEPA filters. The only difference is the motor -- but Dyson also manufacture low-power fans en masse, so they've got many different breeds of motors in stock.
godzillabrennus 7y ago
Not everyone has the same raw materials, machinery, and/or budgets to work with. It doesn’t make sense to collaborate when you are Dyson and can rely on in house everything to get going.
jonrimmer 7y ago
There is a separate, co-operative effort by a consortium of manufacturers to improve and mass produce an existing ventilator design. But with a project of this importance, while it makes sense to pool resources, you can't realistically have every company and every engineer co-operating on the same project. So it also makes sense to have several, independent efforts running in parallel.
Slartie 7y ago
This does make sense. Every company that normally doesn't produce ventilators but wants to make lots of them fast must repurpose as much of its existing tech (production lines, parts etc.) as possible. This requires intimate knowledge of private tech, which only internal teams have.
- michaelt 7y ago
  It depends on what the hospitals' requirements really are. Can they make do with go2vent-style gas operated products [1], which have no electronics? If so, that's a very different situation to if hospitals need products with oil-free compressors and motors and PCBs and screens and power supplies and air filtering and pressure sensors and... [1] https://www.vortran.com/go2vent https://www.vortran.com/go2vent
huffmsa 7y ago
It has to fit their manufacturing process. Which was likely the bulk of the man hours. Taking a spec sheet, and figuring out how to make it work with existing tooling and processes so they don't have to wait to retool the factory.
wccrawford 7y ago
From what I understand, Dyson is not trying to "design a perfect ventilator." He's trying to design a cheaper, easier-to-produce ventilator that will be good enough for many situations, vastly improving the availability of ventilators for all who need it. Everyone else seems to be just working on producing the existing, hard-to-produce ventilator.
- martyvis 7y ago
  One thing I particularly fell in love about the Dyson vacuum (DC29) we bought about 5 years ago was how easily serviced it was. We burned out a motor and everything about the machine was designed for simple manufacture and serviceability. There weren't random cables and screws going every which way. Following a servicemans YouTube, everything clicked apart and back together again. The plastic tooling was very precise. I imagine using those principles for medical apparatus will help in manufacturing consistency, ability to clean and service. They might even find themselves a whole new business path after this. (I'm expecting Elon's similar foray will have equal opportunity for innovation - though I have never been in the position to pull apart a Tesla!)

by lnsru 7y ago

ekianjo 7y ago

> instead of cooperating Sometimes cooperation takes a whole more time than doing things by yourself if you know exactly what needs to be done. Adding more groups/interactions typically slow down delivery.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mygo 7y ago
Agreed. As I understand it, Dyson’s ventilators are ready for scaled production. Maybe they can begin to collaborate with others down the road, but time was essential, and they were clearly able to get these out without a lot of unnecessary phone tag.

jonplackett 7y ago

You have to consider, some of these might not get made in time or be unreliable. Having a few different baskets of eggs might be good.

altacc 7y ago

I know what you're saying, but in this instance there's a fairly good technology & manufacturing fit between ventilators and Dyson's other products. More so than some car manufacturers. Dyson's core business and knowledge involves small devices which move and filter air, often on battery power (yes, I'm simplifying!). So designing something that reuses their existing technology with minimal retooling of the factory might well be easier and quicker than adapting their factory to an existing design.

PJDK 7y ago

Dyson are working with Technology Partnership, a medical device manufacturer. Presumably they're working on a new design that takes advantage of the existing tooling and parts that Dyson have. There's another consortium working to ramp up production of existing designs - seems sensible to try both approaches.

lnsru 7y ago
This sounds convincing. Though Dyson’s products do not have much in common with medical equipment. Hair dryer or vacuum cleaner has other power level than ventilator for the lungs.
- PJDK 7y ago
  That seems like a compelling case for a different design - doing something so that the existing motors can be used. Hopefully when all this blows over we'll have some interesting books and articles to read!
- erinaceousjones 7y ago
  Well, both require lots of high grade flexible plastic tubing and benefit from things like HEPA filters. The only difference is the motor -- but Dyson also manufacture low-power fans en masse, so they've got many different breeds of motors in stock.

godzillabrennus 7y ago

Not everyone has the same raw materials, machinery, and/or budgets to work with. It doesn’t make sense to collaborate when you are Dyson and can rely on in house everything to get going.

jonrimmer 7y ago

There is a separate, co-operative effort by a consortium of manufacturers to improve and mass produce an existing ventilator design. But with a project of this importance, while it makes sense to pool resources, you can't realistically have every company and every engineer co-operating on the same project. So it also makes sense to have several, independent efforts running in parallel.

Slartie 7y ago

This does make sense. Every company that normally doesn't produce ventilators but wants to make lots of them fast must repurpose as much of its existing tech (production lines, parts etc.) as possible. This requires intimate knowledge of private tech, which only internal teams have.

michaelt 7y ago
It depends on what the hospitals' requirements really are. Can they make do with go2vent-style gas operated products [1], which have no electronics? If so, that's a very different situation to if hospitals need products with oil-free compressors and motors and PCBs and screens and power supplies and air filtering and pressure sensors and... [1] https://www.vortran.com/go2vent https://www.vortran.com/go2vent

huffmsa 7y ago

It has to fit their manufacturing process. Which was likely the bulk of the man hours. Taking a spec sheet, and figuring out how to make it work with existing tooling and processes so they don't have to wait to retool the factory.

wccrawford 7y ago

From what I understand, Dyson is not trying to "design a perfect ventilator." He's trying to design a cheaper, easier-to-produce ventilator that will be good enough for many situations, vastly improving the availability of ventilators for all who need it. Everyone else seems to be just working on producing the existing, hard-to-produce ventilator.

martyvis 7y ago
One thing I particularly fell in love about the Dyson vacuum (DC29) we bought about 5 years ago was how easily serviced it was. We burned out a motor and everything about the machine was designed for simple manufacture and serviceability. There weren't random cables and screws going every which way. Following a servicemans YouTube, everything clicked apart and back together again. The plastic tooling was very precise. I imagine using those principles for medical apparatus will help in manufacturing consistency, ability to clean and service. They might even find themselves a whole new business path after this. (I'm expecting Elon's similar foray will have equal opportunity for innovation - though I have never been in the position to pull apart a Tesla!)