North American manufacturers plan for reopening production in stages

North American manufacturers are making plans to reopen in phases, with the help of guidelines from industry associations, as restrictions on nonessential business begin to ease in some states and cities.

North Tonawanda, N.Y.-based blow molder and swimming pool accessory manufacturer Confer Plastics Inc. is starting up new essential production lines starting May 4. The move will bring back 36 of 165 employees laid off in a temporary shutdown following the state's Gov. Andrew Cuomo's suggestion in mid-March that businesses shut down to decrease the spread of the coronavirus.

President Bob Confer told Plastics News the company will begin to make items for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard in its first restart phase. The second phase, Confer said, will bring the number of employees in the plant to about 50 to manufacture essential spa products for medical purposes.

"After that, we're hoping the state will allow us to go into general production, including our swimming pool products and other custom products," he said. "Even then, we're gradually going to take our time with every other week adding about 20 people to the team. So it's going to take us quite some time to get back up to our normal numbers, but I anticipate being there by mid-July.

"I think we're going to meet a lot of consumer demand over the course of the next two months given that the state allows us to make general products that are not considered essential right now," Confer said.

Confer Plastics has applied twice with the state of New York to be approved to restart business, and it is now waiting on a legal team to approve its last application, Confer said.

"We've indicated the need that exists for our swimming pool products based on the fact that we're looking a world right now that's focusing on home confinement and staycations," Confer said. "We're hoping we'll get the OK.

"I'm hopeful that they do approve it and we can get into production by mid-May," he said. "And even if they don't, there's a likely chance that the state will regionally allow western New York manufacturers to go back into business by then."

In addition to taking steps to protect its employees as they return to work like checking temperatures, mandating the use of masks, expanding work stations and implementing education on how to run machines under the new social distancing standards, on April 28, Confer Plastics announced Nick Kocur, who previously managed a distribution center for the company, would take on the role of COVID-19 administrator.

Kocur will "help create controls, enforce and track the controls to make sure we're doing them properly and make sure there's no occurrence of disease within the plant or within family associated with our workforce," Confer said. "He's incredibly bright and gifted and has a great knack for being able to manage multiple tasks and organize things"

The position will last anywhere from six to 12 months, he said, "depending on how long it takes the world to put an end to this virus."

Walled Lake, Mich.-based American Plastic Toys Inc.'s Olive Branch, Miss., plant reopened after the state eased some restrictions in its shelter-in-place order April 24.

The plant is currently operating at about 50-60 percent capacity, President and CEO John Gessert said, while plants in Michigan are still closed.

"Easing back into work," Gessert said, has been met with some "reluctancy."

"The jobs are certainly available," he said. "The federal and state unemployment programs have been so lucrative that some employees are taking their time coming back. And I think some new employees are taking their time to go out there and get a job. … I would say it's just side effect of carefully coming back, making sure that our procedures for checking people in, setting up production lines for social distancing."

The Mississippi plant is adjacent to the state line with Tennessee, which affects employees' ability to return to work.

"And there's an Arkansas border that's relatively close," he said. "Memphis has a different executive order from the municipality, from Mississippi and Arkansas. We draw most of our employees from Mississippi and Tennessee."

Gessert said that while Mississippi executive orders have been "pretty consistent," the toy manufacturer hasn't "had the same cooperation or communication with the state of Michigan."

"The [Mississippi] governor allowed us to have a soft-start production a week before the regular opening for business," he said. "I'm hopeful that my correspondence with [Michigan] Gov. [Gretchen] Whitmer's office will result in something similar, where they might allow us to have a soft opening and start resuming partial regular business, maybe as early as the week of May 11."

The company has two manufacturing plants in Michigan.

If Whitmer extends the state's lockdown past May 15, Gessert said, "we could withstand some very significant long-term loss of business at retailers throughout the United States. That's my biggest concern and that's unique to our product."

"It's a bit of a moving target," Gessert said. "We've lost a good portion of the late spring to summer shipping. Every year during May and June we transition from spring production into fall production so we still have customers asking for product, and we're trying to squeeze some of that in, but we have to be conscious of not affecting our ability to fill our fall orders. We're bumping right up against that right now.

"One of the more expensive assets for any retailer with brick and mortar stores are empty shelves," he said. "Any more extension is going to put us in a tough spot because … we're already getting pretty significant pressure from more than one of our customers saying, 'If you can't start producing this stuff, we might have to look elsewhere.' That opens the door for our competition, which is operating with significantly lower labor costs in Mexico, China and Asia in general.

"Once you lose that spot on the shelf, it can be very very difficult to regain it," Gessert added. "Our demand is not waning. People are looking for spring product."

Most suppliers, he said, are "itching" to ship material. "So far we've had good conversations and I feel comfortable that as we prepare to restart Michigan that we'll be in a good position to hit the ground running."

American Plastic Toy has followed operating guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on safety, including providing protective equipment and implementing social distancing.

The company has also taken guidelines from outside sources like the Toy Association, which Gessert said "has been very active in providing programs and suggestions."

"We're trying to keep it standardized between all three plants regardless of which state," he said. "The only thing that we haven't done up to this point is official training for more than one or two people at each plant for taking temperatures. … During the shutdown for all three plants we took the opportunity to do an extreme deep clean. We've basically redone all of our employees bathrooms and break rooms.

"I'm not going to put our employees in danger," Gessert said.

The Manufacturers Association for Plastics Processors compiled a report of layoff, furlough and recall policies from companies across the U.S. and best practice tips from Benesch Law on bringing employees back into facilities.

"Businesses should be prepared for the easing, but not outright elimination, of COVID-19 restrictions," the MAPP report said. "Governments may still require that reopening businesses take measures to allow for social distancing in the workplace."

Jerry Miller, general manager of Plastech Corp., a custom injection molder in Rush City, Minn., thinks that his sales will be back to normal by the end of 2020, if not sooner.

"I personally feel that things will start to shape up here in the next month or next 30 days or so," Miller said. "We're starting to see some increased orders day to day; some of our customers that were closed are coming back on line. Some that were nonessential businesses are declaring that they're coming back to work in manufacturing in the next two weeks."

Plastech, which molds ventilator parts, among other products, has remained open during the pandemic as an essential business.

The molder used the past few weeks to focus on infrastructure enhancements in the plant, Miller said.

"We've replaced our cooling towers and chillers, and we've added injection molding machines. I just moved two machines this week," he said. "And we purchased a CNC [computer numerically controlled] machine in the tool shop.

"We've expanded our assembly division, remodeled and relocated that whole department to a better climate-controlled facility. So, you know, for us, we plan to be very, very busy very soon," Miller said. "We believe that before the end of the year, we're going to need all that."

Crafts Technology in Elk Grove Village, Ill., had to adjust its manufacturing process to deliver an expedited order for core pins for a COVID-19 tooling project.

President and CEO Jeff Taylor said social distancing practices like using masks made the project more complicated.

"For us, we're not working shoulder to shoulder, everybody's got a machine or two to themselves, so it's easier to keep social distancing," Taylor said. "But sometimes we need two guys to lift something onto a machine, for instance, and they're pretty close, and they're required to wear masks.

"Communicating with masks on, in a high-precision environment, isn't easy," he said. "You don't realize how much you depend on looking at each other's face. And when you say [to] somebody, 'Did you follow that I said it's supposed to be 50 millionths, not one-tenth.' It's an element of stress, just to make sure you're communicating right.

"I think every company is going to be going through this," Taylor said. "We're just doing it earlier than others. But come June, this is going to be something that everyone will have to adapt to."