Mahindra & Mahindra to Manufacture Face Shields for Healthcare Providers

To help combat the nation with the menace created by the pandemic Coronavirus, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd have started manufacturing of the face shield masks for the healthcare service providers and the supporting staff at hospitals, as told by a top company executive. The plan is to produce 500 units of face shields at its Kandivali plant in Mumbai. 

 “With a design sourced from our partner Ford Motor, we are now ready to make this face shield for use of medical service providers. Targeting to make 500 on Monday and then ramp up," as told by Pawan Goenka, managing director, M&M in a tweet. 

The company has recently updated M&M’s engineering teams based at the automaker’s Kandivali (Mumbai) and Igatpuri (Nashik) manufacturing plants to developing a prototype of a bag valve mask, commonly known as an Ambu bag. 

Anand Mahindra, Chairman, M&M, recently tweeted that the Ambu bag is economical and could cost less than ₹7,500 per unit. The company is seeking guidance from the specialists on the usefulness of the device. 

Ambu bag is a self-inflating device and is typically used to help patients who have issues breathing. Earlier, Mahindra & Mahindra declared that it has collaborated with two large state-owned companies to work with an existing manufacturer of high spec ventilators to boost the production scale of ventilators in India amid a Coronavirus crisis. 

The Indian government had reached out to the four other automobile manufacturers apart from Mahindra & Mahindra – Tata Motors Ltd, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, Honda Cars India Ltd, and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd – to explore the possibility of manufacturing ventilators at their factories in collaboration with nine existing ventilator manufacturers. The companies have come forward to save the day for the government and have started manufacturing the ventilators to their maximum potential.