SupplyWay was a concept developed as part of the HackQuarantine hackathon hosted by MLH in the first months of 2020. In the early days of the pandemic, there was a resource shortage of simple ventilator components, including valves. 3D printing emerged as a potential solution to meeting the supply shortage, with 3D printing companies in Italy being one of the first to take action, as the pandemic hit Northern Italy. It was clear that the capacity to meet local demand could be met not only by printer farms, but items such as masks could be made by local makers. As a result, SupplyWay was a concept born from the idea of a distributed manufacturing network, where local demand could be met by local manufacturing capacity. Another vulnerability the pandemic demonstrated was the fragility of supply chains more generally. Just-in-time manufacturing works because it emphasises efficiency, but networks have to trade-off between efficiency and resilience. A distributed manufacturing network has advantages in this regard since the network adapts to local demand.
SupplyWay was envisioned originally to enable local makers to meet the needs of hospitals and care homes in their local area, but we believed it had the potential to solve other issues, such as overproduction of goods and not having to rely on economies of scale to maintain price competitiveness. SupplyWay had an international team working behind it, with members from Canada, the USA, the UK, India, Indonesia and beyond.
Hospitals are severely short on medical supplies spanning beyond just ventilators, including various equipment parts and protective gear. Manufacturers already producing these parts are completely overloaded and can not meet the rising demand. Additionally, due to major widespread city & border shutdowns, there is a significant delay in transporting manufactured goods from one part of the world to another.
Connect hospitals to people/businesses nearby with access to manufacturing equipment so that demand for parts/equipment can be locally sourced.
Buyers: Hospitals
Suppliers: Anyone who can manufacture (local makers)
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