Answering the call for PPE: OSMS and Distributed Manufacturing
Countries, like the U.S, that have traditionally leaned on imported masks, face shields, and gloves, face more severe shortages as exporting countries meet the heightened, global demand. In response, domestic manufacturers have converted their production operations to make much needed PPE.
Healthcare centers, however, are often still unable to acquire PPE. Makers are responding to the need, producing affordable critical equipment, quickly.
With homemade PPE of varying levels of protection, Gui Cavalcanti saw the need to provide expert-vetted designs. In March he founded Open Source Medical Supplies (OSMS) to provide an array of design guides needed to make PPE such as face shields, masks, bunny suits. He soon brought on co-Executive Director Molly Rubenstein and a team of doctors, communications specialists, and community organizers to build the movement.
The production velocity enabled by OSMS is staggering: the group has enabled the production of 12.5 million hospital-vetted supplies within 90 days of inception, with a staff of 14.
In contrast, one of the largest PPE manufacturers, produces more than 95 million N95 respirators per month in the U.S., with hefty support from a Department of Defense contract and 93,500 employees.
Contributing to the velocity of distributed manufacturing is the speed at which it takes for makers to make an item; Makers can create a face shield in a matter of hours while ordering from an international supplier could take weeks to arrive. Sometimes the “when” is never.
“We will always be beaten in volume in the long run, but there is no faster method to get PPE into the hands of people who need them”, Gui Cavalcanti.
OSMS is answering the call for those without buying power, providing designs of varying complexity and costs, “While this isn’t [a] comprehensive top down [approach], [it] provides an opportunity for everyone”, said Gui. Unique to the organization, OSMS provides a forum by which doctors are able to share specific design feedback and PPE needs.
The group continues to create and update existing guides, and provide discussion forums. OSMS recently launched its next-generation website that allows makers to find medical supply designs that match their production capabilities. A top focus for the group is growing distributed manufacturing in specific areas of need. This new forum encourages people to these join localized groups.
While OSMS enables the production of supply, these supplies are not FDA approved supply. Gui mentions, “It’s important for products and materials to be F.D.A. approved. For now, homemade fixes are filling the gaps.”
OSMS is building the distributed manufacturing community we need to face this crisis, and we’re glad they’re a C19 Coalition partner.
Partners are working on every part of the problem: supply, demand, fulfillment, logistics, funding, and information tracking. Learn more about us here and join our directory of organizations.
