Offering deep competencies in complex tooling, molding, and equipment solutions, contract manufacturing partner MGS is playing a critical role in supporting significant increases in demand for test kits and ventilators that are essential to reopening the American economy.
Moving quickly and efficiently to launch production, MGS’ vertical integration across mold building, cleanroom molding, multi-shot equipment, robotics, and more has uniquely positioned it to successfully scale up production of critical plastic components.
Helping America meet the first, critical objective of supplying millions of COVID-19 tests, MGS is playing an integral role in the manufacturing of plastic consumable parts, scaling initial production nearly thirty-fold to rapidly supply components. Through its expertise in high-cavitation mold design and builds for challenging, tight-tolerance parts, as well as in multi-shot injection molding, MGS is serving a critical role in meeting nationwide demand for effective testing.
“Testing is a key factor in determining if communities can safely reopen their economies. In Wisconsin alone, the goal is to conduct 85,000 tests per week on an ongoing basis, with tests needed for tens of millions across the country every month,” said Paul Manley, president of MGS. “The sophisticated tooling and cleanroom capabilities at our Healthcare Center of Excellence in Germantown are instrumental in helping major medical OEMs accelerate production while de-risking the manufacturing process. But nothing has been more important than the passion of the MGS team in their relentless pursuit of this goal.”
MGS also quickly pivoted to supply critical components to support production of approximately 30,000 ventilators in partnership with Ventec and GM. Scaling production to meet the rapid increase in demand, MGS was tasked with transferring a machined plastic valve – eight of which are needed for each ventilator – to an injection molding process that would produce parts in seconds, rather than the minutes needed for the original process.
With decades of experience in mold building for companies in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, MGS engineered, built, and launched a tool in only eight days – demolishing what would traditionally be an eight- to ten-week timeline.
“The collaboration and cooperation across our customer, supply chain, and internal teams – including engineering, estimating, scheduling, supply chain management, sampling and metrology, and our production teams – was the key to ensuring we met our timeline with quality, assembly ready parts,” said Manley. “I am blown away by the commitment of each member of our team, working round-the-clock and on weekends to help us succeed.”
