Social media is currently ‘alight’ with UK engineers doing the country proud in meeting the ‘Ventilator Challenge UK’ demand to support the battle against the Coronavirus (Covid-19).
As part of this supply chain and a UK manufacturer, Guhring UK is holding in excess of £5m of standard cutting tool stock items for the ‘Ventilator Challenge UK’ and the extended subcontract supply chain. Guhring UK is even supplying products to recognised cutting tool manufacturers and competitors that cannot meet the urgent demands of their customer base.
Despite Guhring UK holding a plentiful stock of thousands of standard cutting tool items for next day delivery, it is the UK manufacture and coating of special tools that are really ‘saving the bacon’ for pockets of the supply chain at such a critical time. One particular customer, Bellurgan Precision Engineering Ltd based in Ireland urgently required a 3-step special drill for the production of ventilator components, Guhring stepped up to the mark delivering within 48 hours. Within that 48-hour time frame, Guhring UK had liaised with Bellurgan, designed and created a tool drawing that was subsequently approved and then the race was on. The Guhring UK team immediately manufactured 16 identical tools at its Birmingham headquarters and coated all tools in-house with its Signum coating technology before delivery to Bellurgan Precision in Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland.