COVID-19 Supply Hub

Supply chains have been disrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19, causing difficulties in getting vital equipment - face masks, visors, respirators, spare parts for medical devices and food production facilities - to where they're needed.

This project uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to match up those able to supply these items with the demand. It builds extensively on previous investment which created an online supply portal and an AI matching engine (identifying which suppliers are likely to be able to fulfil a request for goods or services and allocating them to it). By creating a next-generation matching engine the project increases the volume of enquiries the portal can handle and the speed at which they can be processed through the automation of remaining human interventions, and also makes the portal easier to use for non-specialist staff.

The project will:

- increase the volume of vital equipment reaching the front line during the crisis;

- establish a capability to respond to disrupted supply chains in future emergencies;

- strengthen the potential to displace slow, expensive and outmoded approaches to procurement;

- extend an existing academic-commercial partnership, increasing knowledge and understanding of commercialising UK research in AI.

The work builds on the existing, strong partnership between Applegate Marketplace Ltd and the University of Exeter Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

The extension to the project will enable the commercialisation of the work, bringing the benefits of the technology to a wider community.