The Airgas, an Air Liquide company, has partnered with ChemicoMays, General Motors’ third-party chemicals sourcing aggregator, to fulfil urgent requirements for low moisture spec oxygen at GM’s Kokomo, Indianapolis components factory.

Aviator’s Breathing Oxygen (ABO) cylinders, typically used as an onboard backup or supplemental oxygen source for pilots and flight crew, were selected to fulfil a critical quality control step in the manufacture of ventilators being undertaken at the site by the partnership of GM and Ventec.

“On Friday, April 2, a driver out of Evansville transported the first 23 ABO cylinders to our Indianapolis plant 175 miles away,” Airgas explained in a recent social post.

“Then, after making his scheduled Friday deliveries, our Kokomo driver Jamie Baker picked up the cylinders in Indianapolis and made the first safe and successful delivery to the GM plant in Kokomo, Indiana by Friday afternoon.”

GM-Ventec’s first shipments of finished ventilators took place in mid-April and the site now has approximately 1,000 people working on all phases of ventilator manufacturing, with the goal of producing 30,000 ventilators at Kokomo.