United Radio and Ford Motor Company have a model relationship when it comes to repairing and remanufacturing automotive electronics. But the relationship took off in a new direction when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
“We received a call from Ford Motor Company asking if we could help out with their PAPR program,” said Keith Martin, General Manager for the United Radio Automotive Electronics division.
PARP is an acronym for Powered, Air-Purifying Respirators. The respirator is a lightweight unit which uses high efficiency filters for protection against hazardous particulates. Ford is working in conjunction with 3M, GE Healthcare and UAW to quickly expand production of urgently needed medical equipment and supplies.
“There are 10 specific parts of the respirator that need to be replaced on a daily basis,” explained Martin. “Ford is relying on us here at United Radio to fulfill those part orders from hospitals across the country.”
Since United Radio has been providing logistics to automotive companies for nearly 100 years, by shipping and receiving products to over 140 countries, the company felt confident it could assist Ford with this new request.
“However, we’ve never had to ship and receive medical products before this request,” said Martin. “But the system is basically the same. Hospitals will place their orders on United Radio Dealer Services (URDS) or by phone and we will fill and ship the orders.”
Ordering, shipping work needed to be done.
Implementing new automotive products into an ordering system is usually an easy process at United Radio, but when its medical products that were new to the system, there was much work to be done.
The set-up work for hospital products included having a team of people, led by Denise Nettnin and Shannon Comins, working with the company’s IT team to get the website ready to handle these new product orders.
“There were a lot of people that put in a extraordinary effort to get this project up and running,” said United Radio President Phil Rubenstein.” “It’s a testament to the hard work and dedication our employees put forth on a daily basis.”
The handling of the new influx of products was under the direction of Vince Christian, who directs all the shipping and receiving efforts for United Radio. Orders are shipped from the United Radio warehouse, located on Ainsley Drive, in Syracuse, New York. “
We could not have gotten this program set up so quickly if not for the hard work our teams put in to getting the new PAPR program up and running,” said Martin.
A thank you from Ford headquarters!
All the hard work put forth by United Radio has not gone unnoticed.
Just recently, Brian Klippel, Senior Vice President of Operations at Ford, sent along this email of thanks to the entire UR team.