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Online platform launched by 老司机直播 researchers helps businesses, charities obtain COVID-19 protective gear

photo of masks
(photo by Eric Lalmand/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images)

The arrival of COVID-19 presented an acute challenge for Canada鈥檚 thousands of small businesses and charitable organizations: how to acquire sufficient masks, face shields, gloves and gowns amid a global explosion in demand.

Dmitry Krass, a professor at the University of Toronto鈥檚 Rotman School of Management, says the problem was rooted in a supply chain that wasn鈥檛 built to withstand a heavy surge in global demand for personal protective equipment, or PPE, particularly from organizations that didn鈥檛 previously have any need for protective gear.

So Krass and his colleagues at Rotman created a free online platform 鈥 鈥 to connect suppliers and consumers of PPE in order to better match supply with demand, remove barriers and create transparency in the supply chain. Fast-forward just over three months and CovidPPEHelp has over 1,200 users in more than 300 cities across Canada and has enabled numerous businesses and charities to access hard-to-secure PPE at low prices or, in many cases, free of charge. 

It鈥檚 an easy-to-use platform that Krass says addresses serious problems in the PPE supply chain.

鈥淲hen you go to a store and buy a can of soft drink, you鈥檙e sending a signal to the supply chain that there鈥檚 a shortage of this product on the shelf and more product is needed, and the supply chain usually responds very efficiently,鈥 says Krass, adding that consumers have come to expect that stores will always have what they want on hand.

鈥淪o how come this was not the case with PPE? People were going to drugstores and asking for face masks and gloves and none were available. Even hospitals were calling suppliers and saying 鈥榃e need facemasks, we need gloves鈥 and the supply chain wasn鈥檛 able to respond.鈥

Upon investigating, Krass and his colleagues realized one of the main causes was 鈥渋nformational opaqueness鈥 鈥 customers who don鈥檛 know who the source manufacturers are and vice-versa.

鈥淪tores and retailers didn鈥檛 have established sources of supply, so how would they connect to suppliers?鈥 says Krass, who created the non-profit platform with fellow Rotman faculty members Philipp 础蹿猫肠丑别, Opher Baron and Ming Hu.

鈥淎t the same time, the province and the Government of Canada were trying to encourage new suppliers and lots of them jumped in. People who were producing t-shirts were willing to make face masks. Distillers who have ethanol on premises were willing to make hand sanitizer.

鈥淏ut they had no way to connect to customers. They were new to this game and had no established supply chains, so you needed a mechanism where a supply chain could form on the fly, where customers could see the suppliers and vice-versa.鈥

CovidPPEHelp fills the gap. Managed by Rotman MBA graduate Val Kobylianskii and a team of volunteers, CovidPPEHelp allows businesses and charities to register as customers and list their PPE needs, while manufacturers can register as suppliers. Individuals and companies can also donate money to subsidize or cover the cost of supplying a charity with PPE.

Krass explains that a manufacturer who鈥檚 considering producing face masks 鈥 and wants to assess demand 鈥 can log on to CovidPPEHelp and view customer requests for the product.

鈥淪imilarly, if I鈥檓 a consumer 鈥 say, a dental clinic 鈥 and I need gowns, I can log on and see if anyone is offering them. If not, I can post my demand and send a signal to the market that somebody needs gowns, and hopefully suppliers will jump in to satisfy this demand,鈥 he says.

鈥淎nd this is exactly what happened, so it鈥檚 been very nice to see. It was a thought experiment, but it worked out very well in practice. It鈥檚 been very interesting to see how quickly the market responds when given a chance.鈥

CovidPPEHelp also invites donors to help organizations buy PPE at below-market prices.

鈥淲hat we tried to do is establish a mechanism where three parties could connect 鈥 a charity that needs PPE, a supplier that鈥檚 willing to supply at cost and a donor that鈥檚 willing to underwrite the transaction,鈥 says Krass.

One of the many charities to receive PPE through CovidPPEHelp is Shelter Movers, an organization that provides no-cost moving and storage services to women and children fleeing domestic violence and abuse in Toronto.

鈥淪ourcing and purchasing masks, gloves, disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer 鈥 often at inflated prices 鈥 has been an overwhelming, time-consuming and expensive task,鈥 said Yael Schwartz, the NGO鈥檚 director of operations, in a testimonial. 鈥淐ovidPPEHelp.ca allowed me to easily request PPE for our organization and connected me with suppliers who were able to donate supplies and get them to us quickly and without the hassle.鈥

Instances of gender-based violence have risen during the pandemic, so requests for Shelter Movers鈥 assistance have also increased, Schwartz noted.

鈥淪implifying the process of acquiring PPE for Shelter Movers allows us to spend more time and funds focusing on helping our clients,鈥 she said.

CovidPPEHelp is also looking into ways to obtain PPE from overseas suppliers in bulk and distribute them to small companies and organizations in Canada.

鈥淢any suppliers are located overseas and are only willing to deliver in bulk. It doesn鈥檛 make sense for them to ship a hundred face masks to a dental clinic 鈥 they鈥檙e only willing to send in a container with hundreds of thousands of items,鈥 says Krass.

鈥淥n the other hand, many of the customers are small organizations and they don鈥檛 need a whole container. So what we鈥檙e trying to do is create a virtual distributor 鈥 so get a whole bunch of small organizations together and say, if you subscribe to this bulk order, we can bring in a container of PPE from overseas and distribute it.鈥

CovidPPEHelp is also in talks with a company that specializes in blockchain to explore ways to store information about the sources of specific PPE orders, so that any faulty equipment can be traced back to specific manufacturers and suppliers.

鈥淭he idea is to be fully transparent, remove all the middle layers and enable the classical marketplace,鈥 says Krass. 鈥淚f you go to a live market, you see sellers lined up with their stalls and all the customers walking around 鈥 this is what we鈥檙e trying to create for PPE.鈥

He says feedback from the platform鈥檚 users has been overwhelmingly positive.

鈥淧eople have been extremely grateful for this mechanism, and a little bit disbelieving that they don鈥檛 have to pay anything,鈥 says Krass.

鈥淚t鈥檚 been great to see that so many different organizations, especially small ones, were able to secure PPE at a time when the supply was short. So this has been very gratifying.鈥

 

 

 

 

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