Kickstart: New year, same problems

Welcome to 2022. It's the start of a new year, but with some very familiar issues facing both individuals and businesses.

One big item on the schedule for this week, the massive consumer electronics event, CES, is still slated to open Jan. 5 in Las Vegas, but you can expect some open spots on the show floor as a result of the rising omicron variant of COVID-19 combined with travel problems due to canceled flights.

Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Panasonic, Lenovo and Google have all canceled plans for in-person attendance at the event. Others, including materials giant Covestro, have said they will attend but will follow strict health guidelines.

"We'll be adhering to all applicable protocols to ensure we stay healthy at CES2022 and want to talk about how our materials can help bring all your awesome designs to life," Covestro's John Skabardonis said in a Dec. 30 post on Twitter.

CES organizer Consumer Technology Association will require all attendees to be masked and vaccinated, and it has shortened the event to three days rather than four "as an additional safety measure."

The association also says more than 2,200 exhibitors are confirmed to attend and an additional 143 companies signed up for booth space in the last two weeks of December. It is recommending attendees take a COVID test within 24 hours of the show. CES also is supplying a free test to attendees when they collect their badges.

Speaking of testing, MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canadian life science business of Germany's Merck KGaA, announced Dec. 29 that it has won a $136.7 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to build a lateral flow membrane production facility for rapid testing kits.

The funding will support construction at MilliporeSigma's Sheboygan, Wis., manufacturing campus.

The kits are used in testing for HIV, malaria, the flu and other infectious diseases in addition to COVID-19.

The company also recently completed an expansion in Cork, Ireland.

"Building this new facility supports the overall life science business sector's strategy to add physical capacity and expand its regional network to enable further growth of its key portfolios," the company said in a news release.

Final sales numbers for the global auto industry will be coming through in the next few days. We already know that numbers will be down due to computer chip shortages that interrupted production, and industry insiders already are warning shortages will last through the first half of 2022.

Beyond those questions, though, the Center for Automotive Research is pointing to provisions in the U.S.'s bipartisan infrastructure bill, signed in November by President Joe Biden, that could impact plastics suppliers in future vehicles.

The bill includes new requirements for crash avoidance and driver distraction mitigation measures. There is also language in the bill related to dynamic headlights.

While the legal language doesn't specifically mention plastics, auto lighting obviously already is a major user of polycarbonate. In addition, sensors related to crash avoidance are packaged inside plastics such as front grilles and bumper fascia. Driver distraction monitoring systems likely also would involve cameras and sensors to detect inattentive drivers and "technologies to intervene" in those cases, CAR noted.

Major global suppliers including Magna, ZF and Continental have been boosting their production and capabilities in accident avoidance cameras and systems.