Kickstart: A role for machinery suppliers

Bill Bregar always loved writing stories about positive things plastics companies were doing for their employees, for their industry, for the environment and for their community. So it seems appropriate that some of the last stories he wrote and filed before his unexpected death were stories for his "Best Practices" series (which Plastics News will be posting over the coming weeks) and a roundup of what some machinery suppliers were doing to help with the coronavirus pandemic.

The ones mentioned in that story are only a very small number of companies getting involved — many of them finding new ways to use existing equipment. CMD Corp. in Appleton, Wis., normally supplies the converting equipment industry.

It has now dedicated 3D printing equipment it usually used for prototyping to making headbands for face shields in a project coordinated by PLA filament supplier Coex LLC, also in Appleton.

"We are ready to continue to provide the bands as donations to this very important cause, for as long as the need exists," said CMD Director of Operations Ron Buchinger.

Like other chemical companies, Ineos has adjusted production to make hand sanitizer, aiming to deliver 1 million bottles of sanitizer to the United Kingdom's National Health Service per month.

It pledged to begin production within 10 days at two plants. It met that deadline and now has four plants dedicated to making sanitizer even as other plants continue making other materials needed in the coronavirus fight.

What Ineos has that other materials companies lack, however, is a professional cycling team that is accustomed to the complex logistics of moving people and equipment a few hundred gallons at a time via vans or buses vs. rail car loads of a typical production run.

So Team Ineos, the winner of multiple Tour de France races, is now leading the delivery effort to get the sanitizer from the plants to 28 hospitals across the U.K.

"Team Ineos is used to moving at speed but 10 days from start to finish for three plants already was incredibly tight," said Dave Brailsford of Team Ineos. "We are all in this together and I am grateful to everyone in the entire Ineos family for their hands-on approach to getting the job done."

Sure, some people have a really nice home office setup with the perfect chair, a lovely desk and even a nice view.

But the speed of the shutdown caught a lot of people without time to get things "just right." (I was able to recruit a neighbor's son to help me bring my desk up from the basement, so it could definitely be worse.)

But, well, check out the photo above for my version of a standing desk. I have a friend whose "home office" is an ironing board next to the utility closet. But she has a lovely backdrop for those video chats, so no one sees exactly how makeshift her "office" really is.

So how about some audience participation? Share a photo of your setup. The real one, not the version for your Zoom audience. Drop an email to me, at [email protected], and I'll post a roundup selection later this week. And don't worry. I won't identify whose "office" is whose.