To you, it looks like just another shipping container, those metal boxes that are stacked along industrial waterfronts around the world.
To Vince DiCristofaro, however, that shipping container could be another tool in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
DiCristofaro is the CEO of Hamilton’s AVL Manufacturing, which normally makes custom enclosures for power systems and large generators. Now, DiCristofaro is going to turn shipping containers into mobile medical triage modules to help with the testing and treatment of infected COVID-19 patients.
“We saw a need and we readjusted our engineering department to see what we can do to make this happen,” said DiCristofaro, who went from concept to plans to ordering materials in the span of about nine days.
“I’ve never done a project where it’s been this short of a cycle,” he said. “It’s been quite the task. My wife is not a fan of mine right now.”
A standard shipping container is 40 feet long by eight feet wide by 9.5 feet high. DiCristofaro’s plan is to outfit each one with beds, windows, lights, doors, a diesel generator, a heating and cooling system and a ventilator, if they become available.
DiCristofaro said he hopes to source most of the materials he needs from Hamilton and the surrounding area, something he always tries to do.
“I’m a tried and true Hamiltonian so my epicentre starts where I am and no more than 50 kilometres,” said DiCristofaro.
“We’re going to be using a number of Hamilton companies to supply to us, from HVAC people to the generators to the wall panels to the wood that goes inside.”
The company has about 130,000 square feet of manufacturing space at its locations on Queen Street North and Sherman Avenue North.
DiCristofaro hopes to be able to build about five or six modules per week by mid-April and he said he may need to hire additional staff.
The best part, DiCristofaro said, is the mobility of the units. They can be loaded onto a tilting truck trailer and then slide off on site without the need for a crane.
“They can go anywhere,” DiCristofaro said. “In a matter of minutes after dropping it off, you push a green button, you start and you’re off to the races.”
The modules could be placed in a hospital parking lot, in front of a community centre or taken to remote areas, such as First Nations communities that don’t have a hospital.
“Right now people come into the hospital so now you’re potentially infecting nurses and doctors and other patients who don’t have it,” DiCristofaro said.
The cost for each unit will be about $100,000 and up, depending on how each is customized.
AVL Manufacturing has several clients lined up with orders, most of them in the U.S. Some of the clients have expressed an interest in purchasing dozens of the modules. He just wishes he could get Canadian governments to express the same interest.
“Getting to our government level is nearly an impossible task,” said DiCristofaro. “It’s so difficult to find out who you need to speak to. It’s easier and faster for me to get to the American side than I do trying to get someone from the Canadian side,” he said. “It is a crying shame.”
DiCristofaro said much of the government’s focus has been on ventilators, masks and face shields, which he understands.
“But what about this kind of stuff?” he said. “Because the equivalent to this is a tent.” Steve Buist is a Hamilton-based investigative reporter at the Spectator. Reach him via email: sbuist@thespec.com