One of the engineers who was part of a group of more than 100 who built 92 mask production lines in over the past month-and-a-half said the experience was an honor and rewarding.
The delivery and assembly of new machines have allowed for new production lines at various manufacturing plants across the nation, including one at Changhung Machinery’s factory in the mountains of New Taipei City’s Wugu District (五股).
Engineers from several companies, including Taichung-based HIWIN, Taiwan Takisawa and HABOR Precision, and Kaohsiung-based Tongtai Machine and Tool Co, worked together to install the new production lines at the plant, Chen Yu-hsu (陳宇旭), a 63-year-old mechanical engineer, said on Saturday.
Photo: CNA
“A factory building of about 300 ping [991.7m22] had been unused for a while, but now is has become a stronghold in Taiwan’s fight against the Wuhan virus,” he said.
Chen, who has worked at Posa Machinery Co for 22 years, said that while assembling machine components looks easy, it takes experience to do it well.
The team was able to meet the tight schedule because older and younger engineers shared a common desire to aid epidemic-prevention efforts, he said.
The older ones also shared their experience with the younger ones, he said.
Chen was preparing to retire, but felt compelled to join the effort to boost mask production, he said.
He could not pass up the opportunity “to do something for the nation” at his age, even though he had never made a machine to produce masks.
“I have no problems keeping up with younger people. I love the machine tool industry and wanted to be on the front line,” he said.
Different machine tool companies have different procedures, and their engineers have different skill sets, so cooperation between firms is rare, but the past six weeks showed that this barrier could be overcome, he said.
The experience had allowed him to make new friends and learn new things, he added.
“Our purpose was to speed up domestic mask production, but the older engineers were also able to help the younger ones by passing on their knowledge,” he said.
The nation’s success with quickly meeting mask demand had shown Taiwan’s production capabilities to the world, he said.
In an effort to meet domestic demand for masks caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, the government on Jan. 23 banned the export of disposable masks and one week later began requisitioning those produced domestically.
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