GM gets OK to make N95 face masks
DETROIT — After months of waiting, General Motors received certification to start making N95 face masks at its facility in Warren, Mich.
The approval comes as cases of coronavirus are escalating in some parts of the country such as Florida and Texas where front line workers need the airtight face masks to treat infected patients.
The N95 masks are actually filtering facepiece respirators that require a complex four-step process to make, GM spokesman Monte Doran said Tuesday. That is why they require approval by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The difference between an N95 and a flat mask is the N95 creates a tight seal across the face where the flat mask does not and that makes them more complicated to make than flat masks,” Doran told the Free Press. “It takes more manual processing; it requires four different stations whereas flat masks can be done at one.”
The process to get certification went faster than GM had expected, Doran said. GM started it in early April when it installed the equipment to start making the face masks at Warren. Shortly after it started operating, GM sent its application for N95 approval to the CDC for testing and, “here we are in July and we have final certification,” Doran said.
GM is making about 3 million flat face masks per month. Doran estimates the production of N95 masks will be fewer. It will likely be an additional 20% in production. He declined to provide a specific number at this early stage.
GM has donated more than 4 million flat face masks to frontline workers and 230,000 face shields, also made at the Warren facility, since early April, Doran said.
“We are producing the N95 masks now,” Doran said. “Some of the production will be donated to frontline workers and some will be used at GM’s facilities.”
Achieving an N95 rating required a new manufacturing process with four separate stations, he said.
• Station 1: Four layers of fabric are sandwiched together, tack-welded in place and then cut into rectangular “blanks”
• Station 2: Blanks are loaded into a template that welds the outer perimeter as well as the pocket for the wire nose piece
• Station 3: The wire nose piece is inserted, the blank is folded horizontally and a sonic weld in the shape of a hockey stick is installed from the nose to chin
• Station 4: The excess material is trimmed
GM repurposed sonic welders from its Brownstown Battery Assembly plant near Woodhaven where GM assembles lithium-ion battery packs for Customer Care and Aftersales.
The sonic welders had been used to form subassemblies in the Chevrolet Volt’s battery packs. GM updated the equipment with new templates to create the weld patterns needed for N95 respirators.
After being trimmed to shape, the N95 masks follow the existing assembly process at Warren. The ear bands are manually welded in place; completed masks are subject to a quality check, and then masks are cleaned, bagged and prepared for shipment.
GM will not need to add jobs to start making the N95 masks, Doran said.
“We have staffed up to run the line so we are at employment capacity,” said Doran.