How to Turn a Supply Chain Platform into an Innovation Engine https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-to-turn-a-supply-chain-platform-into-an-innovation-engine
In early February 2020, when its home country of China was coping with the first wave of Covid-19, Haier Group, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of home appliances, faced a challenge and an opportunity. A customer—Heji Home, a Chinese home-furnishings company—asked Haier for help in producing mobile isolation wards that it wished to donate to a hospital in Wuhan, the site of the first outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These units required fresh-air, sterilization, and sewage-treatment systems that met stringent medical standards. Neither company had produced such equipment before, and neither had the design resources and supply chain capabilities necessary to go it alone. So they teamed up, and despite widespread lockdowns because of the pandemic and other business closings for the Chinese New Year, they managed to develop a working prototype of the unit and deliver it to the hospital in two weeks.