Using Existing Infrastructure as a source of Ventilator Parts

Let me deal with one possible objection to the feasibility of the plan I laid out, that says it would be impossible to obtain enough parts in a crisis situation to build the large number of ventilators required all across the country.

It is assumed in many planning proposals and scenarios that during a pandemic event that there will be considerable disruption to our transportation and manufacturing infrastructure. The movement of products will be curtailed in order to prevent the spread of infection from one location to another. Non essential manufacturing will be hampered due to regulations restricting the gathering of large numbers of people, again to reduce transmission of the virus.

This will make it difficult to obtain parts from a centralized source to build a large number of ventilators, and since the manufacturing capability is shut down, additional parts can not be produced. There is a rather elegant solution to this problem. Instead of seeing the shutdown plants as yet another obstacle, you view it as an opportunity in that you can actually use the shutdown manufacturing plants as the source of the components to build the ventilators.