Public Funding for Will Davis Design Limited

Will Davis Design Ltd. trading as StudioDavis are a product design and development experts and experienced in designing homeware products and packaging, bringing to market innovative products for large multi-national household care brands. In response to the critical need to reduce the amount of flexible plastic waste going into landfill or ending up in the environment. The objective is, by utilising a collaborative and user focused approach, identify a simple, lo-cost solution, that is specially designed to contain and manage the collection of household waste within the home. Using extensive product design and development experience and also exsisting connections with manufacturing partners. StudioDavis aim to address and understand the functional and technical requirements of an in-home product that contains and collects household flexible waste. Whilst, considering the manufactured price per unit and capital costs to produce the innovative container in the UK from recycled materials (rPP).

Studio Davis (a well-regarded product design company based in Bath UK) is seeking funding to scale up production of a full face ECS certified protective visor for donation to health and social care workers at risk of infection from Covid-19\. The initial impetus leading us to design the visor using non-specialist materials and a low cost/ low-skill assembly process came from approaches by healthcare professionals working in local NHS Trusts where supplies of PPE were inadequate. However there is clearly a need for PPE in other contexts where workers are at risk of potential Covid-19 contagion such as social care (care homes/ hospices). Our aim is to meet that need locally by gaining ECS certification for the visor and producing/ distributing 20,000 units by the end of 2020\. Initial design and field testing of the visor is complete with informal approval from healthcare professionals. The visor represents demonstrably high standards of protection, comfort, and time to market at a fraction of the cost (£2.25 per unit) of most certified visors currently available; finished visors will be donated to health and social care institutions. Whilst the visor uses some plastics in its manufacture, negative environmental impacts are considered in the proposal (for example using different materials/ modularity of some parts). Supplier networks are already in place and assembly and packing processes designed: 500 units have already been produced. All of the costs of initial design work, parts, and facilities overhead for the first batch of visors have been underwritten by Studio Davis. The funding sought for the six month period from May to November 2020 will enable us to improve quality by gaining ECS certification in partnership with UL International; to free up staff and estates resource to scale up production to 1000 units per week in order to reach a production volume of 20,000; and to open source and publicise our design/supply/assembly process to enable other small businesses to produce visors for their localities. In doing so the project seeks to contribute to the creation of a more agile, distributed and resilient production network for PPE. This will help to slow the transmission of Covid-19 in key areas, saving lives and enabling economic activity to resume as quickly as possible. Extension for impact: We request the grant extension from Innovate UK in order to produce an additional 10,000 visors. The request is based on: - The ongoing effect of Covid-19 on our NHS and communities has meant the need for visors is ongoing. - The success of the project so far, we are on target and have established an efficient manufacturing system. - We have a dedicated space, established relationships with UK suppliers of materials, and distribution networks, a fully trained staff of 3 dedicated construction workers employed by the Studio and ready to continue with construction – meaning no down time, offering value for money and efficiency in continued construction. - All visors will be CE registered, handmade in the UK with UK suppliers.