UMW Toyota Unit Sews Up Protection For COVID-19 Frontliners
Our frontliners in hospitals helping to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and treat the ill continue to need personal protective equipment (PPE) to guard against infection. Knowing how dire the need is for PPE, UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd initiated a switch at one of the group’s companies to produce PPE for the frontliners.
Toyota Boshoku UMW Sdn Bhd (TBU) is a joint venture between UMW Toyota Motor and Toyota Boshoku Co of Japan. It was formed to manufacture and assemble car seats, door trims, headlinings, package trays and other automotive interior parts for the locally assembled models. As such, the company has the proper facilities and skills to produce various forms of PPE.
“This is the time when we want to demonstrate good corporate citizenship by assisting in whatever way we can to help our frontliners in their vital duties. We have the facilities that can make the PPE so we can support the Health Ministry replenish its stocks more quickly – at no cost,” said Ravindran K., President of UMW Toyota Motor.
The TBU facilities include automatic layout cutting machines and industrial sewing machines, and 75 workers who are skilled at sewing the seat covers. Templates were made from sample units of boot covers, tudungs and gowns and uploaded to the Automatic Layout Cutting Machine. The final designs are approved by the Health Ministry.
TBU expects to be able to produce up to 1,500 pieces daily and has delivered the first batch of 10,000 pieces to the Health Ministry. The equipment produced by TBU will help to protect the healthcare personnel from being infected while they attend to patients. The frontliners require thousands of PPE units as they are constantly replaced.
“Toyota Motor Corporation has been actively supporting the efforts in many countries to overcome this global pandemic. The support varies according to needs and in Malaysia, we understand that PPE is vital for the frontliners so together with Toyota Boshoku Corporation, we are focusing on assisting in all the ways that we can,” said Akio Takeyama, Deputy Chairman of UMW Toyota Motor.
