On March 6, Gianluca Preziosa, the head of an Italian ventilator maker, received an urgent request. The Italian authorities wanted his help for an all-out effort to meet a desperate need for ventilators.
Now, his Bologna-based company, Siare Engineering International Group s.r.l., has 25 army technicians working with its production supervisors to manage the expanded production and help assemble machines. The army also has made personnel available to the company's suppliers, Preziosa said.
"Usually we produce 160 machines a month. The goal is to produce 2,000 in four months, so more than triple our monthly production," Preziosa told Reuters in an interview. The executive added that companies involved in the supply chain of producing ventilators "cannot respond to the enormous demand because this is a niche industry."