Innovating in the Time of National Emergency: Manufacturing PPE during Covid-19, A Case Study

Abstract We are living in difficult times. Since March 2020 the normal way of life has been interrupted by a worldwide pandemic, Covid-19. Apart from the illnesses' effect on human health, lives of every living person have been altered significantly. Working from home has become a norm for those who can. Online learning, social and work-related gatherings on-line, socially distanced private and public interactions with others, all have become a norm in society. Challenging times result in hardships, difficulties, and disruptions but they also provide opportunities for innovation, creativity, and out-of-the-box solutions. The current times are no different. One area of innovation has been just-in-time manufacturing of personal protective equipment (PPE). Throughout the first several months of the pandemic there was a significant spike in the need for PPE so that health-care service providers could provide service and care to Covid patients without jeopardizing personal safety. Available resource stocks were depleting as new infections rose sharply. During this time people and companies with manufacturing expertise stepped up to help with the process of making PPE including masks, face shields, and other devices as well as critical life-saving equipment such as ventilators. Just as large manufacturing corporations repurposed their facilities to manufacture PPE equipment, individuals used home-based 3-D printing technology to make batches of vital PPE products to supply to local health-care facilities. This paper explores that effort as a case study of distributed innovation in the face of a global emergency. In this paper, we evaluated the knowledge base that was developed as a result of the effort to produce PPE, collated information that is openly available for future developers to use, reviewed the issues that need to be considered by new manufacturers of PPE, and identified all the important lessons learned. This paper also charts a path demonstrating how to successfully design and fabricate PPE that meets requirements for use by the medical community. This case study can be used by students in design classes to replicate the process of PPE development as well as develop new ideas of improvement that will help us in future.