On the Economic Value of Open Source Hardware – Case Study of an Open Source Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scanner

Publishing date: 2019-07-29

Published on: Journal of Open Hardware

summary: Increasing maturation and dissemination of easy-to-use and affordable means of digital production (e.g. 3D printing), access to these in makerspaces and FabLabs as well as powerful tools and online platforms for virtual and collaborative product design enabled the highly efficient and innovative mode of open source to spill over from software to hardware. The authors applied established valuation methods for open source hardware to quantify cost savings and as a result the value of an open source magnetic resonance imaging device (MRI) currently under development by the Open Source Imaging Initiative (OSI2). Depending on the scenario and the valuation method, they found that savings for healthcare systems from US$1.8 million up to US$222 million per year are possible in the near future making the case for public funding and private investment in open source technology development.

authors: Manuel Moritz, Tobias Redlich, Süleyman Günyar, Lukas Winter, Jens P. Wulfsberg

link to paper: https://openhardware.metajnl.com/articles/10.5334/joh.14/

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