Kickstart: Shutting down ventilator production in Kokomo

General Motors Co. and Ventec Life Systems made a big splash when they began making medical ventilators in part of a shuttered GM plant in Kokomo, Ind., in April.

GM left the project in late August and now Ventec has told employees in Kokomo that it will shut down the plant by the end of November.

GM and Ventec — working with a range of suppliers, including auto parts plastics molders that shifted production — delivered about 30,000 ventilators to complete a nearly $490 million contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ventilators were needed to restock medical supply lines early in the pandemic.

The pandemic, of course, continues with more than 230,000 Americans killed by COVID-19, but the pipeline for ventilators has improved. Ventec CEO Chris Kiple wrote in an email to the 800 employees in Kokomo — first obtained by the Kokomo Tribune — that the company believes it can fulfill orders from its existing site in Bothell, Wash.

This week's print issue of Plastics News features our annual ranking of blow molders in North America.

Each year, the top of the ranking is heavily populated by packaging companies, and our researcher Hollee Keller is writing a blog on the ranking that will be online later this week. But the steady demand for bottles and other packaging is providing strong support for Uniloy Inc. as it completes its transition to being a wholly independent company.

Milacron sold blow molding machine maker Uniloy to private financial buyers in mid-2019. Now Uniloy is completing its move to its own manufacturing sites and making plans for NPE2021.

Catherine Kavanaugh takes a look at the new Uniloy here.

If you missed it last week (because, let's face it, that was a very, very, very long week), Frank Esposito blogged about vinyl. Not PVC, but old-fashioned records, as in a 1968 record by a North Carolina garage rock band.

"'Plastic Year' is the B-side to a garage rock single released in 1968 by rock band Blu-Erebus of Mount Airy, N.C.," Frank writes. "Not sure what made 1968 more of a plastic year than 1967 or 1969. The lyrics aren't entirely flattering to plastics — something about a girl keeping her mind in a plastic bag — but the music is energetic. The guys on guitars and keyboards especially made the most of their studio time."

Click through if you need a little garage rock to get your week started.