Coronavirus and the Pneumatics Industry

How COVID-19 has affected the Pneumatics Industry?

The coronavirus pandemic has affected the world economy by ceasing everyday operations, international trade, and freight. Whilst what comes to mind as being hit hard by the pandemic are the tourism and travel sectors, the industrials have also borne much of the brunt. For exampling, according to a recent article by the Financial Times published on the first of April 2020, European automotive factories have scaled down or ceased manufacturing operations resulting in over 1 million workers being met with either reduced hours or redundancy.

There are three ways in which the pneumatics industry has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

1. Pneumatics Manufacturer Shut Down

The largest pneumatics manufacturing facilities can be split into these regions: China, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, and Italy. Smaller manufacturing facilities can be found elsewhere in Continental Europe and the USA.

Italy

As of today (April 2nd, 2020), almost all Italian pneumatic manufacturing facilities have ceased manufacturing operations. Camozzi is an example of one manufacturing that is continuing to produce. Pneumax has ceased production operations from 22nd March 2020 to 3rd April 2020. However, a select few of these Italian manufacturers are able to distribute their existing stock to distributors from their warehouses.

Taiwan and Japan

Asia is a different story. Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturers have continued to operate throughout. With respect to Taiwan, a strong community response as well as quick border control policies have allowed business operations to run.

China (PRC)

Mainland China has seen a shutdown of manufacturing facilities for about two months from mid-January to mid-March. Recent air pollution observations show that many manufacturing facilities have started to operate again. A number of pneumatic manufacturers are now also fulfilling orders from their distributors. However, demand is perceived to be low due to the worldwide economic slowdown.

2. Surgical Mask Production (Newfound Demand for Pneumatics)

There is a very strong relative demand for surgical masks by the medical professions as well as the general populous. There is a marked difference in demand between Asia and the West. Whilst it is a norm (cultural as well as descriptive) that the general populous in Asia wears masks to reduce possible transmissions, the WHO and many governments in Europe and North America advise against the general public wearing masks. However, [t]rying to avoid mask shortages for healthcare workers appears to have been the main priority of those arguing against widespread their widespread use. But while the motivation behind this may have been good, such advice may have actually helped spread the virus, thus adding to the number of patients overwhelming hospitals." (CNBC)

Nonetheless, there is a global shortage of surgical masks with respect to demand. Governments (e.g. Hong Kong) have offered subsidies for entrepreneurs in setting up surgical mask production facilities.

Most of these facilities are driven by pneumatic components. The majority of turn-key surgical mask machines employ pneumatics, particularly slide cylinders and grippers from AirTac. Slide cylinders and grippers are used as material handing components. Hydraulics are grossly inappropriate for these tasks due to sanitary and leakage risk requirements. Electric actuators are expensive, costly to run, and do not offer the same reliability as pneumatics. The only exception are electric motors used to run conveyer belt systems.

 Pneumatics Surgical Mask Machine
Figure 1. Chinese ‘Turn-Key’ Surgical Mask Machine (8-20k USD)

3. Supply Chain Disruptions

Overall, the risk of pneumatics supply chain disruption is low. This is because the stock for pneumatic components is highly decentralised, with various distributors holding stock for various items. Many of these industrial distributors and service providers are categorised as essential services.

In particular, pneumatic filters, lubricators, directional control valves, tubing and fittings have the lowest risk as these are items that distributors readily stock in large numbers and are still able to supply remotely. However, for actuators with uncommon bore or stroke sizes, one may encounter some difficulty. This is because these are made to order by the manufacturer. In some cases, where a distributor can provide cylinder assembly, the right size of tube, caps, and pistons may not be at hand.

British Pneumatics is able to accept orders online and deliver all our in-stock items as usual.

Closing Remarks

The largest disruption will, no doubt, be the reduced demand. A number of industrial projects and initiatives has been placed on hold or, in some cases, cancelled. The world’s largest industrial goods exhibition, Hannover Messe, which was originally scheduled for April and then delayed to July, has now be cancelled outright. Global spending is down, and Chinese manufacturers of consumer goods have not fully resumed their production. Another reason for a slowdown in manufacturing is that many migrant workers in the PRC have been able to travel, and thus many manufacturing facilities (pneumatics or not) have not been operating at full speed.

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