Health Will Be Born From Innovation

Fikirhane
gül ertuğ

Gül Ertuğ Mali İşler Lideri

The fight against Covid-19 has become one of the most important issues today. In these pandemic days, which we all experience, various duties fall on individuals, leaders, and companies. As we fight against this epidemic that has changed and transformed our world in an unprecedented degree, we are happy to see that most companies volunteer to help. I think that we, as Ford Otosan, showed that we are ready to do our part by grabbing the bull by the horns from the first days.

In this process, where everyone took important steps, we took quick action to take steps that would make a difference in line with our vision. While combating Covid-19 as the country, we wanted to support our healthcare workers who are at the forefront against the pandemic by saying that we should have a hand in. While we are going through a process that we experience for the first time together, it would not be possible not to use the contemporary speed of technology and the “benefit to human” inherent in innovation.

We have used all our technological and innovative know-how to date to support healthcare professionals in this process. In this effort, the role of our Fikirhane Innovation Platform, which feeds on the ideas that collectively developed by anyone, is undeniable. At the Fikirhane Innovation Platform, which we switched to the new version earlier this year and made it possible to respond to the problems of all our units, we have applied all stages of our innovative understanding.

Initially, on March 26, we launched the “innovative ideas within the scope of the fight against Covid-19” mini-campaign to enable all our colleagues to present their innovative ideas and to get benefits. Our colleagues showed such interest in this campaign that they contributed with 556 ideas in a short time such as 2 weeks. Thus, this became the most voluntarily participated campaign in such a short time among all the idea campaigns that we have been performing since 2016.

In this process, we focused on quickly identifying the needs to support our healthcare professionals and made preliminary studies to analyze how and on what issues we can help them. By evaluating the information from our infirmary and our own doctors and the hospitals, we found that front line health care workers need face shields to be better protected. Thus, we decided to produce these. Following the design and prototype process that we carried out very quickly in three-dimensional printers, we started the mold of our face visor on 29 March with the devoted work of our team and our supplier BPlas, we completed the mold in 4 days and started mass production on April 2. In full three days, deployment of our face shield was started initially to the nearby hospitals and then across Turkey thanks to the valuable efforts of our voluntary workers, BPlas and our logistic partner Ceva. We have delivered 31,000 visors to a total of 158 hospitals.

On the one hand, we continued our steps towards protecting our healthcare professionals with another innovative product. Next was the design, manufacturing, and distribution of Aerosol Boxes. The design of Aerosol Boxes, one of the most effective medical tools for the protection of doctors during the ventilation of patients, was renewed with the improvements made by Ford Otosan Health Center, our manufacturing engineers, and Farform company. On 3 April, we started the production of Aerosol Boxes, which we aim to facilitate and protect the interventions of our healthcare professionals, thanks to the altruistic efforts of our teammates. Our Aerosol Boxes became ready to be delivered to the surrounding hospitals and then to the health centers in need within only 2 days and reached a production capacity of 240 units per day.

We started to make a remarkably interesting prototype with our technical teams' MVP work by listening to the voice of the customer and meet whatever the real need is. This device, which the team calls FOxygen, is a device and software that measures the oxygen level and pulse values in the blood and sends the information via wireless to mobile phones and computers. The device was started to be developed upon the request of Yedikule Pulmonary Diseases Hospital. Thanks to its sensors, doctors, and nurses will be able to monitor the oxygen level in the blood, which is critical for Covid-19 patients and must be checked frequently, without entering the patient's ward. In this way, the consumption of masks, overalls, and gloves due to entering the patient's room and the risk of contamination will be reduced. We look forward to our device to successfully pass the concept proofing process and other necessary tests and be provided to the service of our health workers on a larger scale.

We mainly relied on the creativity and innovative perspectives of our colleagues to produce and deliver all our projects to healthcare workers in urgent need in such a short time. Thanks to their contributions from the idea to the production stages of these products, a total of 1,150 Aerosol Boxes were delivered to 148 hospitals, and 31,000 face shields were delivered to 158 hospitals to the date.

In this regard, I must thank all our colleagues who have shared their idea with us at such a time to contribute to any size. All the submitted ideas were equally valuable. We have reviewed all the projects and evaluated them one by one, and have already implemented 95 suggestions including HR, Corporate Communication, and Product Development categories.

This innovative approach is what we care about and what we want to be the pioneer of as Ford Otosan. Because we see it all over the world that no matter which sector it is in, innovative ideas again are the ones that have the greatest impact during times of crisis. While we witness that the doors to a different world are being opened in this challenging process, we are proud to act with a sense of responsibility and support our healthcare workers by holding the bull by the horns.

Turkey will continue to work with all our strength to meet the high demand across Turkey. Our support will continue in the coming days.