The lack of personal protection equipment (PPE) is one of the biggest challenges facing doctors, nurses, and first responders in the fight against COVID-19. When you combine the true American spirit of compassion with the creativity and innovation of American manufacturing, amazing things happen.
Thanks to the efforts of manufacturing companies from coast to coast and all around the world, health professionals and first responders are getting the PPEs they need to help save lives, including their own. The following stories of three such companies – in Florida, Wisconsin and California – make me proud to support these manufacturers be heroes.
Making Foam Strips to Save Lives
Many companies in the U.S. manufacture and assemble various types of protective face masks, and right now they’re making them as fast as they can. The problem is the foam pads used to cushion the front of the mask are in short supply. In fact, one of the biggest shortages is the foam strips used to make disposable “shield” masks, that are worn once and then discarded.
Based in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, Milcut, Inc., which fabricates foam, rubber, plastic and high-temperature materials, is doing all it can to help meet the demand. At the urgent request of customers, Milcut began making foam strips for the plastic splash shield that goes on protective face masks. These strips are not one of their standard products. Yet, within three days of receiving the first order, they shipped 15,000 of them.
Milcut then connected with Operation MaskForce, a local effort linked to colleges, hospitals and businesses, and began producing filters for canister masks, a more sophisticated type of protective mask used in hospitals. “The foam strip and canister filter are similar to products we already make, but we had to make a few adjustments before starting production,” says Curt Huettner, Director of Sales for Milcut. “The foam strip is a fairly simple rectangular strip with an adhesive backing to adhere to the plastic face shield and is easy to produce. Fortunately, we had plenty of foam on hand.”
“For the filter, it took a while to find a media type that met three essential criteria. It had to be breathable, it had to filter out the correct size particulate (N95 mask goal), and we needed a source that could provide high volume right away. That took us about four weeks to get going, but we are now suppling them to a local company that makes canister masks.”
Production for the filters started at around 1,000 per day, a drop in the bucket based on demand. But Huettner expects Milcut to soon turn out 30,000 per day. Meanwhile, the company is currently shipping around 50,000 foam strips a day to customers throughout the U.S., with total orders of more than 900,000.
“We’re proud to be making to front-line components to help prevent the spread of COVID-19,” says Huettner. “This crisis also highlights the importance of having strong supply chains, because we’re all in this together. As long as we can get the supplies we need, we can mass produce the parts. We send them to our fellow manufacturers so they can make the PPEs that end up on the front lines, where they are desperately needed.”
An Act of Kindness for the Frontlines
Coming together to make a difference is not something that is foreign to Bazz Houston International (BHI). When CEO Javier Castro learned of the serious shortage of protective
face masks in local hospitals, he didn’t hesitate. Quickly teaming up with two other Orange County, CA-based companies, he launched an immediate effort to design and manufacture face shields for doctors and nursing staff at local emergency rooms. The fact that BHI, a metal forming manufacturer, had never made such a product did not slow Castro down.
With no experience working with plastics, Castro and his engineers began experimenting with the design. Eight prototypes later, they finally hit on the right one. Setting a goal of 15,000 face shields, BHI began sourcing the necessary materials, and Castro put out a call for volunteers to help assemble them. After clocking out of their regular shifts, many employees worked late into the evening on their own time, assembling 330 face shields on the first day. Castro hoped to make at least 1,000 face shield components per day. BHI’s dedicated employees ended up assembling 15,000 units in only five days.
BHI began donating the face shields to local hospitals and emergency responders at no cost, and word of mouth quickly spread. When Sony™ learned of the donations, they began covering the cost of shipping the face shields to other states around the country.
“This was a group effort,” says Castro. “We partnered with our friends and fellow business owners from Automotive Entertainment and Defined Concepts. A few local companies volunteered to purchase some of the raw materials which enabled us to make an additional 3,000 shields beyond our goal.”
“For me, the best part was seeing the passion and commitment our employees showed to each other and the frontline health professionals as they lived our company motto: We Are Strong Together. It feels good knowing that our small business can give back to people who risk their own lives for us and those we love.”
Making It Safe to Study the Virus
While many manufacturers are providing the PPEs and other materials doctors, nurses and first responders need to contain the COVID virus, others are providing safe places for researchers to study the virus. Germfree, a global manufacturer of mobile laboratories, has been providing remote on-site response capabilities for decades. This experience played a key role in the Florida-based company’s ability to respond quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As early as mid-March, Germfree began receiving calls from around the globe for biological containment laboratories to combat the fast-spreading virus. As regional epidemics grew into a global pandemic, the need for bio-containment space skyrocketed. In response, Germfree significantly expanded their factory capacity while offering expertise to industry partners also trying to fulfill the unmet need.
“The pandemic has dramatically shifted the landscape in which we operate, and we believe it is our responsibility to apply our full resources to assist with the pandemic at this time,” says Kevin Kyle, President of Germfree. “We’re currently focusing on providing what those serving in the trenches need to fight this terrible disease."
Germfree built, delivered, and installed the mobile bio-containment lab in Singapore that was the first in the region to isolate COVID-19. In addition to ramping up deployment of mobile cleanroom containment units, the company is also developing new techniques for remote monitoring of critical controls.
Recently, Germfree delivered a 53-foot containment cleanroom trailer to a major U.S. pharmaceutical company working on a COVID-19 vaccine. This was the first of many more mobile labs the company will deliver to scientists and organizations working on virus and antibody testing, vaccine development, research, and deployment solutions.
Reinforcing the belief that “we’re all in this together,” some of Germfree’s most important suppliers have dedicated their resources to producing the materials needed to manufacture the containment labs. Kentucky Trailer, a key provider of specialty mobile platforms, has made Germfree their top priority. Other suppliers, including Northern Air Systems, a producer of specialty cooling units for the mobile laboratories, are putting mechanisms in place to secure the supply chain for Germfree during the pandemic.
“Thanks to our suppliers and the hard work of our employees, Germfree was able to quickly meet the need for a biocontainment unit specifically designed for COVID-19 vaccine development,” says Keith Landy, CEO of Germfree. “Yet, we believe it is not enough just to have sufficient global lab capacity for this pandemic. The labs we’re designing to combat the coronavirus can be easily tailored to meet needs that have yet to be identified so we’ll be better prepared for the next crisis.”
Compassion Meets “Can Do”
Stories of manufacturers making a difference in the battle against COVID-19 are growing by leaps and bounds. I highlighted Milcut, BHI and Germfree because they represent more than just the ingenuity and “can do” attitude of manufacturers. These companies – each part of the family of manufacturers powered by Global Shop Solutions – also demonstrate a real compassion and caring for their neighbors and for people all over the globe who are being affected by the pandemic. Their efforts make it clear that we are indeed all in this together – today and in the future.
About Global Shop Solutions
We simplify your manufacturing.™ Global Shop Solutions ERP software provides the applications needed to deliver a quality part on time, every time from quote to cash and everything in between including shop management, scheduling, inventory, accounting, quality control, CRM and 25 more. Available in the cloud or on premise, our manufacturing customers benefit from real-time inventory accuracy, improved on-time delivery, lower administrative costs, increased sales and improved customer service. Headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas includes a state-of-the-art R&D facility and Global Shop Solutions training center. Through its offices in the U.S., Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the company supports thousands of manufacturing facilities in over 25 countries and nearly 30 industries.
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