20 years’ worth of ventilators [built] in 12 weeks to help save lives.
NHS UK Ventilator Challenge
Ask:
The National Health Services (NHS) of the United Kingdom (UK) were experiencing an ongoing ventilator shortage in the wake of COVID-19 during the summer of 2020. In response, the UK government converted several manufacturing plants into ventilator production lines. But how do you train over 3,500 new workers to make something they’ve never built before?
My team and I were tasked to help ramp up ventilator production however we could. We chose to take this challenge on through the use of extended reality (XR) and the Microsoft HoloLens 2.
Impact:
13,427 ventilators created during an emergency in just 12 weeks
Thousands of lives affected from the influx of life-saving medical equipment
Deliverables:
40+ immersive learning Guides for AR/VR headsets
A new immersive learning program for teaching assembly workers complex instructions in an easy-to-understand course
100+ blueprints & schematics transcribed and digitized
A 3D asset library of 50+ ventilator parts
Client
United Kingdom National Health Service, High Value Manufacturing Catapult
Dates
Aug - Dec, 2020
Role
Co-lead, UX Designer
Link to Case Study
How do you teach 3,500 people six months of instructions during an emergency?
The results? 20 years’ of ventilators made in just 12 weeks.
An immersive learning experience was key here to upskill over 3,500 new workers for something that typically takes 6+ months to learn. Hundreds of ventilator blueprints and schematics were transcribed into mixed reality Guides that would instruct new employees how to build ventilators step-by-step, both auditorily and visually.
On this engagement, I was co-lead of a cross-national team of designers and strategists, as well as an acting UX designer in the 3D design process.
Over 100 manuals digitized into XR Guides.
Taking over 100 manuals and instructions on ventilator production, my team and I translated this information and medical jargon into easily navigable & simple-to-understand Guides, built within the Microsoft HoloLens and the Dynamics 365 platform.
40+ Guides designed within Microsoft HoloLens 2
Connecting thousands of assembly-line workers over Microsoft Remote Assist
100+ manuals and blueprints digitized into extended reality (XR) Guides
50+ storyboards streamlining the ventilator production process and distilling complex medical language into easily understandable instructions
The numbers speak for themselves: 15 million parts from 88 global suppliers all within ourDynamics 365 supply chain solution. To put this into perspective, that’s 20 years’ worth of typical ventilator production in just 12 weeks. At its peak, a ventilator was completed – on average – every 88 seconds.
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