At Emerson, we have a responsibility to support the critical infrastructure industries we serve in both the fight against COVID-19 and as they continue providing the essentials people need to live their lives across the globe.
In this feature-length article, they cover in-depth the impact the pandemic has had on Emerson and how Mr. Farr’s leadership – and limitations – are leading the company through.
Emerson is helping pharmaceutical companies and over 700 health care customers to fast-track research, development and delivery of lifesaving COVID-19 treatments to patients.
Turnarounds are becoming even trickier due to the impact of supply chain problems, staff shortages, lack of contractors and other COVID-19-related issues.
Emerson leaders discuss how the company has pivoted to meet global needs.
In the scramble to produce critical medical supplies for the coronavirus crisis, some key calls are being made from an office in Ferguson.
Emerson technologies and expertise are empowering customers in life sciences, food and beverage, chemical, power, energy and other essential industries to carry out their vital work. Our global workforce is partnering to help meet customers’ evolving needs to address the COVID-19 pandemic across the industries we serve.
Supporting Medical Professionals
Our Branson ultrasonic equipment automates and accelerates the production of surgical face masks, face shields, disposable hygiene gowns and filter media to get vital personal protective equipment to care providers faster. We are ramping up production to meet the mounting needs across the healthcare industry.
Our advanced additive manufacturing (industrial 3D printing) equipment is quickly producing face shield components to increase availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare personnel on the front lines battling COVID-19.
Our automation team is working alongside a group of dedicated individuals in Texas to provide expertise and 3D printing access for the production of components that affix to snorkeling masks, offering a possible alternative to N95 masks found to be in critical demand.
Emerson is shifting our manufacturing capacity in a key facility to accelerate production of printed circuit boards for ultrasonic welding equipment. Ultrasonic welding is critical to manufacturing N95 face masks that protect global healthcare workers.
Providing Vital Resources
Our monitoring and controls technology is helping protect temperature-sensitive medication across the pharmaceutical cold chain, keeping medicine safe at a time when maintaining health is pivotal across the globe.
Our advanced compressors and control technologies are providing comfort and air filtration in life-sustaining businesses such as hospitals, surgical suites, laboratories and senior care centers. These same technologies are used in “pop-up” emergency medical facilities and testing sites to maintain precise temperature, humidity and filtration requirements for environmental control and storing of critical medications.
Our Ovation™ automation technologies are used globally in the power and water industries, controlling water treatment in many of the United States' largest cities and thousands of power generation plants across the world. Our experts continue to provide remote and local support to these critical infrastructure industries — driving across the United States by automobile instead of airplane and self-isolating for two weeks upon return — to help sustain the electricity and safe water supply for our communities, hospitals and the industries vital to everyday life.
Our Copeland compressors and condensing units are supporting a key manufacturer of temperature-sensitive test kits for COVID-19, accelerating rush orders to ensure they have what they need.
Our Coriolis meter technologies are empowering manufacturers to switch production lines to meet a growing global need to protect people from the further spread of COVID-19. We helped a customer producing fuel ethanol and a Boulder distillery convert their manufacturing lines to hand sanitizer production. In both cases, our teams were able to expedite the delivery and implementation of this highly accurate measurement technology, helping enable faster conversion and production.
Meeting Critical Needs for Patient Care
Our life sciences automation experts are working closely with biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers as they race to identify and produce potential vaccines and therapies to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. These experts are helping identify the safest, fastest path to move potential therapies from clinical trials to manufacturing to patients. Our DeltaV distributed control system and technologies for electronic batch records and real-time modeling and scheduling enable manufacturers to quickly produce clinical trial materials and easily expand manufacturing to help meet global patient needs.
Our Cargo Solutions team provided a customer with cloud-based, temperature and location monitoring services for vital COVID-19 test kit shipments to ensure they arrived safely and undamaged to their destinations.
Many of our valves are used in ventilators helping protect patients with respiratory illnesses. Our Asco and AVENTICS valves are helping home health care and medical device manufacturers develop oxygen therapy devices that help prevent the need for a ventilator or assist with the transition off of a ventilator. We have prioritized production of these components to meet the growing demand of medical device manufacturers.
We are working with customers on multiple applications for valves, filters and regulator solutions for ventilator manufacturing. In addition, we are exploring opportunities to expand single ventilator use to care for more patients.
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Our industrial automation and controls solutions are used in healthcare applications, from environmental hospital control systems to refrigeration monitoring of pharmaceutical and research samples. In addition, an oxygen supplier currently aiding in the manufacture of 10,000 ventilators uses our controllers and Quickpanels for gas control.
In addition, our valves are helping manage pressure relief, keeping equipment and materials clean in sterilizers, in oxygen therapy devices to help high-risk patients or those in recovery, and to support blood analyzers and other vital hematology equipment. Our high-pressure and high-purity valves are also helping provide oxygen supply in pop-up and remote hospitals, as well as triage centers.
Our advanced Coriolis Meters enable highly accurate charging of cartridges in infectious disease diagnostic machines that are delivering fast results to patients in need.
Our Therm-O-Disc business is producing hermetic feedthroughs that are used in oxygen sensors, a key component in ventilators, positive airway devices and other medical devices. We have accelerated manufacturing and more than doubled output of these essential parts to meet our customer’s increased demands.
Explore transformative ideas, inspiration and insights from Emerson executives in industrial automation and beyond.
