How Ford and Team Rubicon Designed a Better Disaster Response Van
A shovel may seem like one of the simplest tools used during disaster recovery. But when dozens of volunteers depend on a vehicle to transport shovels, rakes, bins and other equipment, even something as basic as storing a long-handled tool can become a significant logistical challenge.
That challenge became a central part of a collaborative project involving Ford Philanthropy, Team Rubicon and GRIDRACK™. The organizations set out to redesign a Ford Transit van around the real-world needs of disaster-response volunteers, known as Greyshirts.
The objective was not simply to create a more organized cargo area. It was to build a mobile workspace that could help volunteers spend less time loading, unloading and searching for equipment and more time helping communities recover after disasters.
According to Team Rubicon, the completed Ford Transit is expected to save volunteers approximately two hours every day while working in the field. The time savings could translate directly into more work completed for communities affected by floods, storms and other disasters.
The project also demonstrates how commercial vehicles can be adapted beyond conventional transportation applications. By studying how people actually use a vehicle under demanding conditions, engineers can create solutions that improve accessibility, organization and efficiency.
Starting With the Real Problem
Ford Philanthropy and Team Rubicon have worked together for years to support communities before, during and after disasters. Over time, their relationship expanded from financial support to finding practical ways Ford’s employees, engineering expertise and mobility capabilities could contribute to disaster response.
For this particular project, the first step was not designing a new storage rack or modifying the vehicle.
It was understanding the problem.
Ford employees who also serve as Team Rubicon Greyshirts had firsthand experience with the difficulties involved in preparing equipment for deployment. One of those employees, Ryan Keith, experienced the issue during his first deployment.
He noticed that volunteers spent a substantial amount of time loading and unloading vehicles. That raised an important question: could a better vehicle configuration allow volunteers to spend more of their deployment actually performing recovery work?
The question became the starting point for a broader investigation.
Ford Philanthropy brought in the GRIDRACK™ Consumer Insights team to study the way Greyshirts use their vehicles and equipment during disaster-response operations.
The team examined basic but important questions.
What equipment needs to travel in the van? How frequently is each item used? Where should individual tools be stored? How can volunteers access equipment quickly? How should the vehicle be reorganized when the requirements of a deployment change?
Perhaps most importantly, what happens at the end of a physically demanding day when volunteers are tired, dirty and still need to prepare equipment for the next day?
These questions helped shift the project from a traditional vehicle-storage exercise into a user-focused design effort.
Designing Around the Volunteer
A disaster-response vehicle faces very different requirements from a conventional commercial van.
In a normal cargo application, equipment may be loaded primarily for transportation. In disaster recovery, however, volunteers may need to access tools repeatedly throughout the day.
A shovel might be needed immediately at one location and then returned to the vehicle. A rake could be required at another work site. Bins may contain smaller tools or supplies that need to be accessed quickly.
This means organization is not simply about making the cargo area look neat.
It is about reducing unnecessary movements and making equipment intuitive to locate and retrieve.
GRIDRACK™ engineers began developing potential solutions using computer-aided design, or CAD. Those concepts were then turned into physical prototypes and evaluated with Team Rubicon.
The process involved repeated cycles of design, testing and feedback.
One of the more complicated challenges involved long-handled tools.
Shovels, rakes and similar equipment are available in different shapes and handle diameters. They also occupy considerable vertical or horizontal space. A storage system therefore needed to accommodate different tools without making them difficult to remove.
The team experimented with different orientations, including vertical and horizontal storage configurations.
The objective was to find an arrangement that maximized available cargo space while still allowing volunteers to reach tools quickly.
Testing in the Field
A concept that works in a design environment is not necessarily effective during an actual disaster deployment.
For Team Rubicon, real-world conditions provided the ultimate test.
Volunteers may be working outdoors for long periods, dealing with damaged infrastructure, mud, debris and other challenging conditions. They may also be wearing gloves, which makes small latches or complicated storage mechanisms more difficult to operate.
The vehicle therefore had to be designed around practical human behavior rather than theoretical efficiency.
Team Rubicon provided continuous feedback throughout the development process.
Matt Colvin of Team Rubicon described the testing process as an opportunity to learn by putting the equipment through genuine field use and identifying what did and did not work.
That willingness to provide direct feedback became an important part of the collaboration.
Rather than treating the first prototype as the finished product, Ford and GRIDRACK™ continued modifying the system based on observations from Greyshirts.
The approach effectively created a feedback loop: identify a problem, develop a solution, test it, collect feedback and refine the design.
Making the Most of Limited Space
Cargo space is one of the biggest constraints in any van-based operation.
Even a Ford Transit with a substantial cargo area has finite capacity. Disaster-response teams may need to carry a wide variety of tools and supplies, making efficient use of every available section of the vehicle essential.
At one stage of the project, the team physically laid out the equipment Team Rubicon wanted to carry.
The quantity of equipment initially appeared to exceed what could reasonably fit inside the Transit.
The challenge was therefore not simply adding more storage.
Instead, the team needed to rethink how the available space was used.
The resulting system uses modular storage components to organize equipment vertically and along the vehicle’s walls. This reduces the amount of equipment sitting loosely on the floor and creates clearer access routes through the cargo area.
The team was ultimately able to organize the equipment in approximately 90 minutes, according to Safarik.
That represented an important indication that the system could make a practical difference during deployments.
A Modular Approach to Disaster Response
The completed Ford Transit incorporates several elements designed specifically around Team Rubicon’s operations.
Among them are dedicated storage solutions for long-handled tools, bins for essential equipment and modular wall panels.
The modular nature of the system is particularly important because no two disaster deployments are necessarily identical.
A flood-recovery operation may require a different collection of equipment from a hurricane response, wildfire recovery effort or storm cleanup.
Instead of permanently fixing every piece of equipment in one location, the storage system allows the interior configuration to adapt to the mission.
That flexibility is one of the key differences between a conventional cargo van and a vehicle designed specifically around a specialized operational workflow.
The goal was to create a system based not only on what Team Rubicon carries, but also on how Greyshirts interact with that equipment.
Saving Two Hours Every Day
The expected time savings are one of the most significant outcomes of the project.
Team Rubicon estimates that the finished Transit can save volunteers approximately two hours each day in the field.
In disaster recovery, two hours can have a meaningful operational impact.
Instead of spending that time sorting tools, unloading equipment, searching through cargo or reorganizing the vehicle, volunteers can potentially use those hours to complete additional work orders.
Joe Provenzano, Director of Mobility and Volunteer Engagement at Ford Philanthropy, described the benefit as effectively giving those hours back to the communities being served.
The impact also extends beyond the number of tasks completed.
Disaster-response work can be physically demanding. Volunteers may spend an entire day performing cleanup, removing debris, repairing property or helping residents recover from severe weather events.
At the end of that day, they still need to prepare their equipment for the next deployment.
A more organized vehicle can reduce some of that additional workload.
Supporting Volunteers Beyond Productivity
Jim Brooks, CEO of Team Rubicon, highlighted another potential benefit of the redesigned vehicle: giving volunteers more personal time at the end of a demanding day.
For Greyshirts, disaster response is not simply a logistical exercise. Volunteers are working directly with communities that may have experienced significant damage or disruption.
The ability to finish operational tasks sooner could provide volunteers with additional time to rest, regroup and prepare for another day of work.
That makes the vehicle more than a mobile storage system.
It becomes part of the overall support infrastructure for disaster-response personnel.
Ford Building Together
The project is part of Ford Building Together, an approach that brings Ford employees, expertise and resources together with nonprofit organizations to address practical community needs.
The Team Rubicon Transit project illustrates how that approach can extend beyond traditional philanthropy.
Instead of simply providing financial support, Ford was able to contribute vehicle expertise, engineering resources and employee experience to address a specific operational challenge.
The collaboration also demonstrates the potential value of bringing end users directly into the development process.
Team Rubicon volunteers understood the challenges because they encountered them in the field. Ford engineers understood vehicle architecture and mobility. GRIDRACK™ contributed expertise in storage design and consumer insights.
Combining those perspectives allowed the team to develop a solution around an actual use case rather than designing a generic cargo system.
From Prototype to Disaster Response
The completed Transit quickly moved from development into real-world service.
Less than 48 hours after the vehicle build was completed, it was already traveling to the Texas Hill Country to support flood recovery efforts.
That deployment provided an immediate opportunity to put the design through the kind of real-world conditions for which it had been developed.
For the Greyshirts using it, the most important measure of success is unlikely to be how sophisticated the storage system looks.
Instead, success comes down to simple questions: Can volunteers find the tool they need? Can they remove it quickly? Can equipment be put away without unnecessary effort? Can the vehicle be reorganized for the next assignment? And can the team spend more time helping people affected by disaster?
Those questions were at the center of the project from the beginning.
A Different Way to Think About Work Vans
The Ford Transit developed for Team Rubicon offers a broader lesson for commercial and specialty vehicles.
Vehicle design is often associated with major components such as engines, drivetrains, suspension systems and electronic technology. But operational efficiency can also depend on much smaller details.
A shovel holder, storage bin or wall panel may appear insignificant on its own. When hundreds of volunteers interact with those components repeatedly, however, small improvements can accumulate into meaningful time savings.
For Team Rubicon, the redesigned Transit is intended to turn those small improvements into additional hours of community service.
The project began with a simple question about where to put a shovel. It evolved into a detailed examination of how disaster-response teams use vehicles, tools and cargo space.
By listening to volunteers, testing prototypes and repeatedly refining the design, Ford Philanthropy, Team Rubicon and GRIDRACK™ developed a vehicle designed around the realities of disaster recovery.
The result is a purpose-built mobile workspace intended to make equipment easier to organize, access and deploy.
Most importantly, the project demonstrates that better vehicle design does not always require a dramatic technological breakthrough. Sometimes, it starts by watching how people work, asking the right questions and solving the small problems that consume valuable time.
For Team Rubicon’s Greyshirts, those solutions could mean fewer minutes spent searching for equipment and more time spent helping communities recover.
And in disaster response, that time can be one of the most valuable resources of all.
Source Link:https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/
