LEGO, known for their plastic bricks, are showing they live true to their motto. If you have been to the LEGO House in Billund, Denmark you would have seen this piece that states “Rebuild the World”. Now LEGO is rebuilding the world by manufacturing protective gear for healthcare employees in Denmark.

According to LEGO’s Instagram post, the company is manufacturing about 13,000 visors a day for medical use. They are able to to this by designing the mould and manufacturing the visors in a very short time.

About 100 LEGO employees are involved in this project, and started when one employee took the initiative to kick-start an idea into action. A LEGO employee at Creative Engineering department realised the acute shortfall of safety glasses for healthcare staff in Denmark. He approached his team, and in a short timeframe, they now have a production line for safety glass that is used by hospital staff in Denmark.

Just like LEGO, Louis Vuitton joined the efforts and started making Hospital Gowns and PPE to support the frontline workers at six hospitals in Paris.

Employees from both these two organisations, along with many others, have acknowledged that the shift in demand away from discretionary products and spending would change the production needs of the economy, and in particular their business. In a matter of weeks, they’ve managed to retune and redesign their value-adding activities to a completely different purpose. How? In most cases, these organisations have no prior experience in medical supplies and PPE.

One way they can embark on their innovation in these troubling times using a tool known as ‘SCAMPER’. The SCAMPER model developed by Bob Eberle stands for:

Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify
Put to other use
Eliminate
Reverse

Using this framework, employees ask exploratory questions such as, “How Might We Combine and Adapt’ our existing materials and processes to develop new products and services’ to help alleviate the pain points in dealing with COVID-19?? Can we put our processes to another use? Can we substitute our design with another one?

Moving forward with exploratory questions that are anchored on SCAMPER means allows these organisations are responding to needs of the community in a rapid fashion.

Can other organisations also kick-start their creative juices to respond to unexpected demands from the community? The obvious answer is a resounding YES! The real question is, what can we do to step up a desire and penchant for innovative thinking within every individual to Make A Difference in our community?