Nimble, Distributed Production and Delivery, aka, Team PPE Transport by Thant Aung together for the PPE Challenge. In under four weeks, our team of part-makers grew seven-fold, we took on five times the number of projects, and we’re still growing. How do we move all these parts and supplies around when we’re not allowed to get together in a single location? In the first week, I was transporting the face shield parts from the makers to the assemblers. The tracking sheet was small enough that I didn’t have to scroll through it. Peter von Elling, Margie Foster, and I were tracking individual transports to meet the requests. The destinations were only for two primary assemblers. It was simple. As the PPE effort was taking off, more and more part makers came on board and there were individuals without 3D printers who wanted to contribute. The administrative burden was growing and it no longer made sense for us to track every single transport. It was late March when I saw a Facebook post about Nova Labs’ PPE Challenge. Earlier that week, I had been reading news of medical staff not having enough PPE, so I thought it amazing that Nova Labs would be making a direct impact. I figured I’d help by making a PayPal donation as I didn’t have a 3D printer, and by the time I’d be able to get one and have it adjusted, Apple and other companies might already be making local deliveries of the much-needed PPE. I started to wonder if I could help in some other way in the meantime? I had been working from home for a week at this point, and my family had been watching the news all day worrying about what would happen. My phone’s newsfeed was full of COVID-19 posts. I wished there was something I could do rather than staying home so I sent a message asking if I could help. I’ve learned this is a common story of how all of us have come Page 10 | May Newsletter | Nova Labs
We needed to scale up our transport system and have a more structured process in place. With a new volunteer, Tiffany Winsor, Peter, Margie, and I moved to the next logical step of having drop off hubs. Luckily, more volunteers were offering to drive at the same time. Tiffany compiled a list of folks who were willing to share their locations as hubs and I started putting all the addresses on Google Maps to see where everyone was and our current transport model was born. I didn’t have any prior experience with distribution, but fortunately I recently read Marc Randolph’s “That Will Never Work,” Netflix’s early story of their DVD-by-mail business, and I borrowed some ideas. I cannot deny that my younger days of playing a ton of Starcraft might also be contributing to move armies and to gather resources around a map. Our initial number of part makers started at ten and has grown to about eighty today. There are
