Repurposing manufacturing lines for providing medical and other products and services in case of spiking demand times.
During the 30 months of RESERVIST (December 2020-May 2023), the project partners demonstrated the repurposing within 48 hours of five existing manufacturing lines towards manufacturing protective and medical equipment, products and services.
Necessity is the mother of invention
The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has shown that several types of protective and medical equipment, products and services are crucial, including the ability to deploy them rapidly. Because of cost factors, these products, or at least critical components for them, are often produced outside the EU. Once things normalize, there will be a large pressure to return to that situation.
Therefore, it is a real challenge to set up a concept, methodology, and practical supply chain, especially since for large scale manufacturing one needs tapping into existing lines at commercial companies.
