The Ventilator Challenge | Recognising A United Effort

A United Effort 

 It’s more than a month since we celebrated our CNC Team’s work on the Ventilator Challenge on behalf of some of our local engineering community. The community comprised Cambridge Consultants, PA Consulting, Sagentia, Team Consulting and TTP plc. 

At the end of April, the Cabinet Office suspended any further production of the devices as the UK government expects to meet demand using existing ventilator designs. 

The huge efforts and achievements of all those involved in the Ventilator Challenge will not be soon forgotten. Here is a brief round-up to recognise the united efforts of our local community. 

Cambridge Consultants 

The Cambridge Consultants team of 185 people worked ‘day and night without pause, despite the working constraints of a national lockdown.’ The result is a ‘fully-featured ventilator, capable of a range of sophisticated and technically challenging functions tailored to the reality of the COVID-19 patient journey.’ The ventilator is called Veloci-Vent. The company is responding to interest to use Veloci-Vent outside of the UK, where ventilator capacity is limited. 

PA Consulting

PA Consulting collaborated with Penlon to develop Penlon’s Prima ES02 device. The devise ‘has been designed, manufactured, tested and delivered to the frontline in just four weeks; an extraordinary feat of engineering and ingenuity.’ PA Consulting’s Chief Executive Officer-Elect, Panos Kakoullis, said: “PA Consulting is proud to be a part of this life-saving national effort at this critical time.”

Sagentia

The team at Sagentia developed a ‘largely mechanical ventilator, which is software-free, using a majority of custom-fabricated parts to avoid the potential for supply chain conflict around critical components.’ Their ventilator design, along with the four other ventilator designs, was deemed as ‘clinically viable’ during its evaluation. ‘Huge sacrifices have been made by them [the Sagentia team] and their families as they’ve worked tirelessly to bring the Sagentia Ventilator to clinical readiness.’ 

Team Consulting

Assembling a group of engineers, human factors specialists, industrial designers and project managers, Team Consulting designed EVA – the Emergency Ventilator Apparatus – in six weeks. Team’s Product Lead for EVA, Steve Blatcher, said: “The project has truly been an example of selfless determination, camaraderie and amazing ingenuity. Although EVA is paused, she is absolutely ready to move forward and save lives if required.” 

TTP plc

A 140 strong TTP team (comprised of clinical, engineering, electronics, software and human factors groups) designed TTP’s new CoVent ventilator. ‘Within the first week of the project, TTP had successfully demonstrated the prototype of CoVent, a functioning ventilator.’ TTP’s Managing Director, Dr Sam Hyde, said: “What the TTP teams have achieved over the past few weeks is astounding. CoVent is an amazing success story of experts working together and achieving what everyone thought was impossible.”

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