Maker networks fighting Covid-19: Design guidelines for redistributed manufacturing (RDM) models

Abstract

Maker Networks indicate how society organizes itself to overcome significant challenges, such as the lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze initiatives that produced PPE for frontline health staff to propose design guidelines for implementing RDM-Maker Networks: Networks of people and organizations in the Maker Movement that collaboratively produce goods or services organized in a redistributed manufacturing (RDM) model. This paper has two main results: Five Maker Networks in Brazil analyzed in terms of their RDM features and the subsequent design guidelines. We selected cases through several criteria like their location and the type of one of their nodes. Those criteria also represent limitations that further works can address.