Humanitarian | Supercharg3d

Project DIAMOnD becomes latest to commit to 3D printing tourniquets for injured Ukrainians

Project DIAMOnD (Distributed, Independent, Agile Manufacturing On-Demand) has joined the growing number of organizations which have committed to 3D printing aid for those Ukrainians injured by Russian troops.

3D printers from Markforged were chosen to implement Project DIAMOnD. Photo via Markforged.

With Ukraine still under siege by Russian forces, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has called for wound-bandaging tourniquets to be shipped into the country, triggering initiatives across the 3D printing industry. Now Automation Alley’s Project DIAMOnD has added to these efforts, by mobilizing every 3D printer in its network to create tourniquet clips, which it plans to ship to Makershelp for assembly.

Industry 4.0 manufacturing principles leveraged in disaster areas by Field Ready

Field Ready In the midst of a severe earthquake that registered 7.8 on the Richter magnitude scale, Nepal was shaken, villages were levelled, avalanches triggered, and millions affected. Nearly 9,000 died, around 22,000 were injured, and 3,000,000 – a tenth of the country’s population – were made homeless. The country sandwiched between India and China was brought to its knees.

As aid and rescue teams from countries near and far descended on Nepal, ‘tent cities’ were erected, and within them, similarly constructed hospitals cared for the injured. These make-shift emergency centres are critical in crises such as this, saving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives at each catastrophic event. But they rely, as so many services do, on a consistent electricity supply, something an earthquake-ravaged setting, for example, can hardly guarantee. In one particular clinic in Nepal in 2015, there was an outage. Suddenly the chances of survival for each patient was cut dramatically.

How local manufacturing is redefining humanitarian aid

Local manufacturing is not a new concept, but advancements in technology and design mean that now more than ever, it is a viable option – especially when it comes to disaster recovery and helping war and weather-torn areas. Field Ready’s Eric James talks about how creating supplies-in-the-field can make all the difference when responding to humanitarian crises.

In regions where something as simple as an umbilical cord clamp or a plastic u-bend can help save lives, local manufacturing can have a hugely positive impact. Hard to reach areas stricken by disaster, conflict and extreme poverty can be slow to receive emergency aid and broken or non-existent supply chains often mean that people in these areas don’t have the equipment they need when or where they need it.

Access to the right technology can circumvent these supply chain problems and can mean the difference between waiting weeks and sometimes months for medical equipment, power or clean water to having systems up and running in a day or even less. But local manufacturing isn’t just about the technology. It’s about putting the people – the communities – first, focusing on the actual support they need on the ground. We can then apply design thinking and other methods to map the technology best suited to meeting their needs and alleviating their suffering as quickly as possible – not the other way around.