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.
Emerging Reservist Cultures
Crises can be unpredictable and can take many different forms, so it is impossible to be fully prepared for every possible scenario. However, by learning from past crises and continually improving our response strategies, we can work to become more resilient and better equipped to handle future challenges as they arise. The RESERVIST is a collection of inspiring stories of resilient practitioners, alongside a speculative design tool to help envision and plan for the future development and consolidation of reservist networks.
If you are interested in learning more on crisis response, watch RESERVIST’s virtual discussions and share experiences, develop best practices, and align values for effective crisis management.
RESERVIST Digital Platform
The RESERVIST Digital Platform aims to create “Reservist-cells”, that in times of crises can be activated to produce necessary medical products and services. The Platform is a web-based platform that supports the activation process. It presents RESERVIST’s market place of products, materials and services, but also includes situation awareness services for partners and registered customers to support preparedness for ramp up production in times of needs.
