Developing Flexible Risk Management Systems for Resilience in a Post-pandemic World: Can Lessons from a Makerspace Case Study Support Pacific Island Communities?

Abstract

Pacific Island communities are facing disruptions to supply chains from natural disasters and a changing global environment, which have become more acute following the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, it has been demonstrated how flexible systems can enhance resilience in low-resource environments, such as adapting to changing consumer needs and minimizing supply chain disruptions. This paper considers how the development of a flexible system for conducting a risk assessment on a product that was developed and manufactured in a Makerspace environment would have application in Pacific Island communities to improve resilience. Using a participative action research (PAR) approach, a traditional product risk assessment is refined through iterative PAR cycles to reconceptualize it into a structured simplified risk process. The resulting product development risk assessment process (PDRAP) demonstrates that it is possible to adapt a detailed systematic risk assessment process, such as hazard and operability analysis (HAZOP), to be more suitable and effective for low-resource situations requiring flexible solutions. The improved process provides greater system flexibility to empower people to develop products which may improve their resilience in an ever changing and complex world. The PDRAP process can improve product design and adaptability which assists safeguarding supply chains from system wide disruptions. With the emergence of Makerspaces in developing countries for supply chain recovery from natural disasters and a changing national strategy, the PDRAP provides communities with a low-resource approach for risk assessment to ensure the safe use of products fabricated using emerging low-volume, rapid prototyping, and manufacturing technology.