Maker Networks Fighting Covid-19: Design Guidelines for Redistributed Manufacturing (RDM) Models

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.


INTRODUCTION
Recent works on Maker Movement have claimed its influence on economic development and innovative solutions generation (Chen & Wu, 2017). There is literature on how makers are organized or inserted in some network (Giusti, Alberti, & Belfanti, 2020;Hamalainen & Karjalainen, 2017;Johns & Hall, 2020;Smith, 2017). There is also literature on positive outcomes of their collaboration (Lindtner, 2015;Roedl, Bardzell, & Bardzell, 2015). However, few have explored a networked production model when it is deeply related to the Maker Movement.
This article describes design guidelines based on the analysis of five Maker Movement initiatives located at Brazil Southeast and how they organized themselves to produce PPE like Face Shields, a piece of vital equipment for the frontline healthcare personnel facing  were set up to explore the idea of local manufacturing bases connected to a wider network of supporting manufactures" (Smith, 2017. See also Menichinelli (2020), where the author explores several frameworks for the interplay of the actors involved in this process under the proposal of the "Maker City" (Menichinelli, 2020, p. 97).

Redistributed Manufacturing (RDM)
The earliest RDM definition concerns the influence of technology and business model on the production location and scale (Ford & Minshall, 2015;Pearson, Noble, & Hawkins, 2013).
In this work, we use the same RDM definition from Srai and Kumar et al. (2016), which works it from a literature review, making it a more precise definition than the umbrella concept (Hamalainen et al., 2018) of distributed manufacturing (or production): 'the ability to personalise product manufacturing at multiple scales and locations, be it at the point of consumption, sale, or within production sites that exploit local resources, exemplified by enhanced user participation across product design, fabrication and supply, and typically enabled by digitalisation and new production technologies'. (pp. 6932-6933).
Other RDM characteristics found in literature reside mainly in the application of Industry 4.0 technologies (Turner et al., 2019) and the move from a centralized mass scale towards a small-scale localized production (Chandima Ratnayake, 2019;Freeman, McMahon, & Godfrey, 2017;Prendeville et al., 2016;Srai, Harrington, & Tiwari, 2016;Veldhuis et al., 2019). Hennelly, Srai, Graham, Meriton, & Kumar (2019) developed a framework to describe the features required by RDM implementations. Their analysis, applied to makerspaces, can be applied to identify existing or lacking RDM features on the Maker Networks under investigation in this study and is used as an initial reference to define RDM implementation guidelines.  The description of each parameter (Hennelly, Srai, Graham, Meriton, & Kumar, 2019) follows below.

Case study
This article relies on theoretical sampling to "extend emergent theory" (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 537) and on case study (Yin, 2018). First, our theoretical sampling matched the theoretical propositions that made us envision the case study (Yin, 2018, p. 215). Then, we described how the cases implemented RDM by matching patterns (Yin, 2018, p. 223) from the literature on RDM, translated by the questions to be answered (

Questions to analyze RDM-Maker Networks
Based on "Key RDM-makerspace characteristics" (Hennelly et al., 2019, p. 543), we formulated a series of questions, as seen in Table 2. Answers altogether indicate how a case implemented RDM.

Selecting cases
This study uses a qualitative approach to build design guidelines as an interpretative construction (Bryman, 2012). Although inside a reasonable range of cases to study (Eisenhardt, 1989), the number of cases selected was not supposed to explore all the possible configurations of Maker Networks allowed by definition, as presented in the theoretical section. Nevertheless, the selection of cases intended to include the same variety of nodes as described in the theoretical section: individuals, universities (or departments), companies (or divisions), research institutes, and makerspaces.
In this research process, there were several limiting conditions. We focused on the Brazilian region with the highest number of initiatives (Olabi, 2020), the Southeast, which happens to be the region with the highest number of cases of COVID-19 (Ministério da Saúde, 2020) as of the date of this research. Thus, where the action of the Maker Networks would be of most impact. Since the study began with a case -SOS 3D COVID-19 -with a university department as an essential node, we maintained the criterium of having at least one node located at a university. The exception was Rio Hacker Maker Space (RHMS): once a subnetwork integrating SOS 3D COVID-19, it became independent during the study. Other criteria were using fast prototyping technology and the initiatives donating the production output for public hospitals.
These criteria allowed us to select five initiatives, which had active websites and social networks with accessible information on how the PPE was being produced -which provided answers to Table 2 -except RHMS that required an interview.

Providing design guidelines
Once we identified how cases implement RDM, it was possible to grasp enabling operative principles, which, when linked to RDM characteristics derived from literature, form the design guidelines for RDM-Maker Networks proposed in this study.
The design guidelines are mostly based on the interpretation of the cases considering what they have in common and, if applicable, a particular case's specificities. Thus, it was possible to interpret the cases' information and generate the design guidelines by observing the findings.
The steps were the following: first, we described the cases according to the selection criteria, then, we explored the RDM features in tables (Table 3 and Table 5 to 8 -in the appendix).
After that, the design guidelines were worked out. The evidence supporting them are found either in the cases' description and specificities or in the tables. Specific aspects observed in each case allowed to exemplify some guidelines.

Cases Specificities
Rio Hacker Maker Space (RHMS). RHMS members reside in Rio de Janeiro, the same city as the hospitals they delivered the PPE to. A member designed a PVC pipe-based face shield model from scratch as an alternative to the 3D-printed model. The interviewee considers the

Maker Movement related to open innovation processes. RHMS provided classes and
organized dissemination activities in a public school in Del Castilho, a Rio de Janeiro neighborhood, where the interviewee has delivered lectures.

SOS 3D COVID19 (SOS). This network started and had its headquarters at the Arts and
Design Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. RHMS was a subnetwork from SOS for about two months.

Makers Contra a Covid-19 [Makers Against Covid-19] (MCC). Having had its headquarters
at Casa de Makers makerspace, they advocated for non-hierarchical autonomous behavior and also promoted the Brazilian Universal Healthcare System (SUS) as "the unique form of reassuring the population survival" (Makers Contra a Covid-19, 2020). MCC's first 3D model is called 'VIVA SUS V1', and one of their 3D models has the inscription 'NOT FOR SALE.'

Trem Maker [Maker Train] (TM). They describe themselves as "makers and enthusiasts
believing in the potential of Maker Culture and the importance of creative economy to the economic growth of Minas Gerais state" (Trem Maker, 2020). Daniel Lopes is the member who started the project. He is the founder of 3DLabs, a 3DP company. This network is the unique one in this study that also produced a Face Shield for selling.

Design guidelines
Next paragraphs indicate the design guidelines as the final result of our analysis. Each guideline is described by the key expression concerning the core idea behind it. Their originating group of RDM characteristics separates them. We describe the evidence(s) supporting each guideline in Table 4 below.

Product requirements.
A coordinating node meant the ability to guarantee the regularity of output. Once approved the model, all network nodes were supposed to replicate that one with the demanded requirements.  Final user participation since the beginning; in this case, healthcare professionals. Their inputs helped the initiatives to create and approve the PPE digital models quickly, leading the first batches production to take approximately a week.
Third, relying on open-source models was also fundamental to have a fast response to demand. We may understand this fact as a step forward to a "possible future" (Gasparotto, 2020, p. 69) scenario, where open manufacturing technologies will make the production scale flexible.
Enabling technologies. Nodes diversity: as seen in BCV, nodes with different capabilities allowed for a diversified output. Other networks, even those making different products other than Face Shields, were not observed using more complex technologies like those available at research institutions, for example, stereolithography (SLA) and digital light projection (DLP) 3D-Printers used in the case of CPAPNIVs.
Actor transformation. Cultural aspect: motivating the nodes to cooperate in a network.
Four cases had statements in their websites about the maker's role or the Maker Movement as a fundamental enabler to overcome situations like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Process the demand using the online Google Forms™, which digitally stored the hospitals' information and provided a straightforward way to ask for donations.
The multidisciplinary character of the professionals composing the network. Usually, the network's ability to give an adequate response to a complex problem will be directly related to the diversity of professionals and their ability to deal with inputs from each other, which precisely represents this multidisciplinary capability.
Networked activities to produce PPE may have increased members' motivation to collaborate in maker processes. They may already have the necessary abilities: makers, researchers, engineers, designers, among many others. Nevertheless, as the interviewee from RHMS said: The importance of makers in society is to be able to bring innovation and collaboratively contribute to research. So, not only I contribute here in Brazil, but I can receive contributions from other countries (…). This was made very clear with these models of Face Shields.
Local enablement. Institutional support, which was fundamental to accelerate the networks' growth and capacity. Either at a shared workshop at Leroy Merlin® (BCV) or PUC-Rio's prototyping lab (SOS), once the network integrates this kind of resource, it grows in logistic capability, output volume, and even audience.
Actors and the community: at least one node have participated in a social project in all the networks, be it an individual maker like the interviewee from RHMS, be it a university department through extension programs, like Rio DESIS Lab.

Business Model.
Crowdfunding has been considered an essential source of financing for start-ups, individual projects, and even a new type of philanthropy (Zhang, Tan, Sun, & Yang, 2020). With cases in this study, it was not different: besides institutional support, donations were also a fundamental growth enabler.
Confirmation of previous guidelines: because Business Model is the integrative element of the RDM framework, besides using alternative finance, Table 3 confirm previous guidelines, like user-participation, institutional support, and open development of products. Coordinating node. Open-source. Nodes diversity. Actors and the community.  As the networks depended on donations and donated the production, it possibly allowed members to feel part of a collective effort (Actors transformation-related guidelines). Besides, institutional support and alternative finance also confirm the idea of a relationship between the Maker Network and the people and institutions existing in the place this network is located (Local enablement derived guidelines).

RDM-Maker
Networks represents a way people may participate in producing goods and services to overcome difficulties as those imposed by a pandemic, like the shortage of PPE.
We understand Maker Networks as a type of collaborative network (Manzini, 2012). These RDM implementations may increasingly allow communities to participate in resilient networks and not rely exclusively on mass-production oriented models. The networks analyzed here represent a small-scale distributed manufacturing where we have a "moderate volume manufacturing of products in multiple locations while providing mass customization" (Kumar, Tsolakis, Agarwal, & Srai, 2020, p. 11).
We derived design guidelines from Maker Networks operating in a level of stress never observed before since the dependency of organizations on global supply chains has increased since the late 1990s (Baldwin, 2012). Besides, the COVID-19 pandemic generated a type of disruptive environment. Organizations that operate in such extreme situations may generate insights on issues like "organizational processes of adaptation and prioritization, resilience (following an extreme event), and barriers to inertia (where organizations fail to respond)" (Hällgren, Rouleau, & De Rond, 2018). The pandemic influenced our observations and the resulting design guidelines. We consider that Maker Networks' operation under the pandemic may offer insights for a non-extreme scenario.
For instance, every university and research institute related here had to operate with a restriction of access to their buildings (Gusso et al., 2020). However, they managed to contribute by adapting to digital infrastructure, which exemplifies the digital side of RDM processes (Srai, Harrington, et al., 2016).
This work contributes to the current literature on RDM implementation cases, which have been described only in Europe and India and often in a prototypical stage (Luthra, Mangla, & Yadav, 2019). The contributions we give to the theory are twofold. We have created a tool for qualitatively analyzing new cases of RDM implementations by translating "key RDM-Makerspace characteristics" (Hennelly et al., 2019, p. 543) into a series of questions. Besides, the design guidelines presented here may also contribute to observing and exploring other Maker Networks in terms of RDM features.
The design guidelines explored in this study may also provide initial input for decisionmakers and policymakers worried about local resiliency and supply chain resiliency in future projects or investments. One of the main contributions of the RDM-Maker Networks studied here was providing relief to the shortage of PPE from the traditional and globalized supply chain. Implications for supply chain resiliency and design can be further explored.
Further research can also explore locality-related specificities and cultural aspects on cases, which would be useful to detail the RDM analysis in terms of Local enablement and Actor transformation, respectively, with the aim to refine the design guidelines or qualitative models concerning these characteristics.