## 3 Organizational Model and Problem Analysis
### Initial Stage: Centralized Model (from 23 March to 5 April)  
Because of the emergency, the UCLM commission initially opted for a centralized management model in the Toledo campus to meet all the requests from the region. For this purpose, a simple web form was provided to allow institutions to formally request the manufacture of PPEs. The communication among makers was conducted through a mailing list and data were stored in local spreadsheets. The different fabrication units (makers) had to report the number of PPEs produced daily to have an estimate of the available stock. During the first days of the crisis, numerous requests were received from hospitals, health centers, retirement homes, judiciary and law enforcement bodies, civil protection, etc. Occasionally, some of these requests involved the fabrication of up 1000 units, mostly face shields. Considering that a basic FDM-3D printing kit requires an average of 1 h to manufacture a headband, orders above 100 units implied the coordination of several fabrication units, which sent their stock to Toledo. Once in Toledo, the products were distributed to the end-users. The limitations of that model were obvious, as the printed objects had to travel from various locations in the region to Toledo, and then to travel again to their final destinations, which could be relatively close to some of the fabrication units. This was clearly inefficient and fabrication units with larger production capacities, i.e., the 3D printing lab in Albacete, could not work correctly under this model and was forced to attend large orders outside the system to shorten delivery dates. At this point, it must be stressed that quick responses were mandatory, as PPEs were urgently needed in hospitals and health centers about to collapse. Additionally, it should be pointed out that the centralized model also implied higher shipping/transport costs. To sum up, this system caused a rather poor service in terms of response time and costs. From the management point of view, this system also implied an important load of work for the team responsible for the coordination in Toledo, as they were in charge of:  
* Management of all the requests for the entire region. * Permanent contact with each fabrication unit to know their production rate as this may not be constant in time and stock must be monitored. * Collection of the fabricated PPEs from each fabrication unit. * Preparation of the orders and distribution to end-users. In addition, at an internal level the coordinators must:  
* Ensure stock and distribution of the raw materials required by each fabrication unit. * Give technical support to the fabrication units in case of faults/breakdowns in domestic 3D printers. Consequently, Toledo became the bottleneck of the system hindering a quick and effective response to all the requests coming from a rather vast region. A summary of the problems that arose during this initial stage is listed in Table 2. As the coordination was extremely complicated and the system was clearly inefficient, we proposed several changes in the organization to maximize the production and minimize the time of response and costs associated.