Meet the drilling group working day and night to support the NHS
With tens of thousands of jobs on the line, a worrying lack of essential supplies, and the necessity to stay isolated from your nearest and dearest, it is quite unsurprising that countless people around the world are overwhelmed with negativity. The current state of affairs may seem inescapable to many, but it is essential that we all work together in order to see the light at the end of this long tunnel.
Borehole Solutions is one of the many companies working hard to support the NHS in any way they can during this devastating pandemic. Those in the engineering department, BSL Precision Engineering, are working around the clock to produce a variety of parts that are essential in the creation of ventilators.
The firm normally facilitates and undertakes site investigations through various methods of drilling, but their focus has temporarily shifted. Currently, their entire engineering team is putting their expertise to good use and putting all other jobs on hold when a ventilator order comes in.
Manager, Thomas Fielding, is overseeing the precision engineering, production and distribution of these essential ventilator parts, from tiny aluminium dowels and small brass hex pins to 12mm thick bellows plates made of black acetal.
Thomas explains, “It is all made out of the material we would normally use – aluminium, brass, acetal. We’re able to simply use a different programme on our machines and they pump out the parts.”
The engineering team at Borehole Solutions are working overtime to produce as many parts as they can. As Tom states, “We have a day shift crew and night shift crew so we can work around the clock. In our first batch, we made enough parts for five ventilators. The morning after delivering them we had an order in for another 50.”
The engineering team all wear Tyvek throw-away overalls, latex gloves and face masks whilst they work. Also, the machines are all cleaned and disinfected in-between shifts, as well as each part produced being cleaned and disinfected before being packaged in air-tight packaging.
From the day and night production and distribution of life-saving equipment to safe and simple practices of disinfection and social distancing, the Borehole team are certainly doing their part, and would like to inspire others to follow suit.
