Kickstart: From black granite to luxury vinyl tile

The newest manufacturer of luxury vinyl tile flooring in the U.S. has a very interesting backstory.

If you haven't read correspondent Jeannie Reall's story, M.S. International Inc. of Orange, Calif., has purchased the Cartersville, Ga., facility of ROKplank Inc., a maker of vinyl and stone composite flooring.

If MSI sounds like a familiar name, that's because it is, at least in supplying stone for everything from countertops to flooring to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The company began in Manu and Rika Shah's basement in Fort Wayne, Ind., as a planned part-time business in 1975. Six years later, the Shahs were still operating out of their home when MSI won a contract to supply the black granite for the memorial.

"With their entire savings invested in this project, they spent endless nights making sure that the project was executed perfectly," the company says on its website.

Now MSI has annual global sales of $2 billion and will begin U.S. production of its Everlife-brand rigid-core LVT. MSI's vinyl flooring products had been sold in the U.S. (and some 30 other countries), but with the acquisition in Georgia, the company will also make it in the U.S.

As the auto industry continues to face a microchip shortage that now is expected to impact production until 2023, a recently retired CEO says suppliers need automakers to be more clear about production plans.

Bill Kozyra, who officially stepped down from fuel tank blow molder TI Fluid Systems on Oct. 1, said in a podcast with our sister paper Automotive News that carmakers need to be clear about exactly what they will be able to produce, so suppliers know exactly what is needed. Currently, automakers may say they expect to make a certain number of a specific vehicle each month, and ask suppliers to stock up and provide parts.

"The reality is, when we get to the end of the month, the OEM cannot take all the volume we can produce," Kozyra said.

As a result, suppliers are not able to run as efficiently as needed to get their expected profits.

Kozyra also talked about TI's decision to require vaccinations for its U.S. employees and the process for his planned retirement.

You can find the Daily Drive podcast at the Automotive News website or wherever you stream your podcasts.

Maybe you got a pandemic puppy in the past 19 months or so. Or maybe you've been spoiling the pup you already had by subscribing to a monthly delivery service of toys or treats.

Bark, a New York-based creator of pet products (manufactured in the U.S. and Canada), has seen sales of its Bark Box subscription service soar throughout the pandemic. It now employs more than 700 people.

So when it started looking at ways to comfortably bring people back to the office, it turned to a very "on target" tool: dogs trained to sniff out COVID-19.

Florida International University's Global Forensic and Justice Center has been training dogs to sniff out specialized scents, such as a fungus specific to avocados and COVID, our sister paper Crain's New York Business writes.

The dogs now on patrol at Bark's New York offices include two fully grown Beagles — Noel and Buddy — and 12-week-old Solo, a Beagle in training. If they sniff out a suspected COVID case, the person is sent to get a traditional test.