UK's MyMaskFit unveils reusable facemasks for medical workers

The mask is unique as it has a fully customised fit according to the individual’s face. This will ensure a high fit-testing pass rate and better protection. The customised mask will also provide the most comfortable wearing experience that enables clinical workers wearing them for a long time. There is a local 3D printing supply chain to ensure a fast and flexible reaction to the demand with short lead time, the company said in a press release.

Distributed manufacturing consists of using global and remote expertise, producing parts locally and diversifying supplier network productions, researchers from WMG decided to use distributed manufacturing to create a digital supply-chain marketplace, which is attractive to buyers and suppliers, as it uses the insight gained from other marketplace examples to address known barriers and issues. This means that companies can transform customer feedback into designs and products that can be achieved within days through such a dynamic and distributed supply chain.

The WMG accelerator team also helped, by leveraging their existing knowledge learned from UK Collaborative Commerce Marketplace (UKCCM). UKCCM is a digital marketplace created by WMG Accelerator Team, which aims to increase sales and lower costs through providing easy access to the core competences and capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises. MyMaskFit was then able to meet the classification of cloud-additive manufacturing with a touch of the platform's support (marketplace) to amplify the on-demand supply chain to a larger scale, according to MyMaskFit.

“We are glad that our distributed manufacturing archetype and marketplace archetype helped MyMaskFit to form their business model from the academic side. It feels great knowing a better mask can potentially help more NHS workers or even save more lives. From a macro perspective, two separated models (distributed manufacturing and B2B marketplace) perfectly help each other out. This project can potentially sketch out an emerging pattern of the future manufacturing in the UK,” Carl Che from the WMG SCRG at the University of Warwick, said in a statement.

“Our mask is unique as it is reusable and customisable, however in order for it to be mass produced and manufactured easily we needed a sustainable supply-chain in place. WMG at the University of Warwick have helped us meet our customer’s needs and expectations by helping us secure a sustainable and digital supply-chain, this means we can easily check our suppliers availability and prices and provide MyMaskFit quickly and at a competitive price,” Paul Perera from MyMaskFit said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)