Processors move fast to meet medical demand due to COVID-19

Early this year, global plastics processors shifted to new production lines to meet unprecedented demand for goods needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic while keeping their workers employed through periods of lagging demand in other sectors.

Those suppliers are still seeing the effects of the pandemic on their core markets, and some have shifted almost entirely into medical as high demand for items like personal protective equipment and medical testing products has continued through the year.

Shanty Bay, Ontario-based Molded Precision Components' production was about 95 percent automotive in December 2019 when it signed its first medical customer contract, David Yeaman, president and owner, told Plastics News. Today, MPC's production is about 90 percent medical and just 10 percent automotive, he said.

"It's been a really incredible ride," Yeaman said. "We knew relatively early [COVID] was going to shut down the automotive area here in Canada and [we] tried to position ourselves to survive the pandemic."

MPC didn't lay anyone off, Yeaman said, and it stocked automotive products until it could develop some essential business.

The company, which does its own tool building and molding manufacturing, created a joint venture with its medical customer to develop an adjustable, injection molded headband with a replaceable visor, he said.

In just eight days, Yeaman said, MPC "designed and developed a face shield, had a patent pending on it, formulated a joint venture, applied for a grant application and had an approval."

MPC received grants from the Canadian government to fund tooling, he said, but there were still more challenges to overcome.

"We needed space," Yeaman said. "The township lent us the hockey arena, and we moved our entire warehouse into the arena and all the stock automotive components we were running in the meantime."

Before the pandemic hit, MPC had begun construction to expand its existing facility, he said.

"There was concern that would have to stop," Yeaman said, but instead, MPC accelerated construction to increase the size of the building from 30,000 square feet to 45,000 square feet.

"In 60 days, we launched an entire facility of 14 brand-new molding machines with robots and automated packaging systems," he said. "We made over $5 million worth of tooling and now have the capacity of making 450,000 face shields a day."

The federal and provincial Canadian governments together purchased $27 million worth of face shields from MPC, Yeaman said.

MPC also retooled some of its existing machines to make face shields, he added.

"There is an ongoing market in face shields that we will continue to compete in," Yeaman said. This year, MPC also developed technology for making bottles for hand sanitizers and soaps with a one-step process, he said.

With so many new production lines, the company went from $10 million in sales in 2019 to $90 million in sales so far this year, Yeaman said.

With the increased demand and sales, MPC's staff has also more than doubled. The molder started with 55 employees and saw a surge of 185 staff midyear, with seasonal student employees. That leveled out to 125 employees total, he said.

"It's put a lot of people back to work who were otherwise laid off," Yeaman said.

Livermore Calif.-based injection molder Westec Plastics Corp. was deemed an essential business when shutdowns hit the state, John Baker, director of sales at Livermore, told Plastics News. Its existing medical customers transitioned their point-of-care diagnostic testing products to be used for COVID-19 testing, Baker said.

Westec implemented social-distance policies, cleaning schedules and barriers between workstations to meet state requirements for the plant.

"It was kind of a constant change for the first month and a half," Baker said. "Almost on a daily basis the requirements were changing."

The company purchased five new molding machines this year to meet "highly accelerated" demand from its customers, he said.

"We were able to react quickly and responsibly … and to ensure our employees were staying safe and healthy," Baker said.

Two of the new machines with mobile clean rooms are in production currently and three more will arrive at the end of October, he added, which will also be placed in a newly outfitted clean room.

"Those machines are geared to produce a million parts a month for a specific customer," Baker said. "We're taking some very calculated risks to invest in the equipment and facility infrastructure to accommodate their needs."

Westec has also seen a "tremendous increase" of companies looking to reshore product due to the pandemic, Baker said, and has grown about 10 percent in medical sales this year.

"All of the planning we've had to do … purchasing new equipment, clean room support equipment, a complete relayout of our production facility, increasing additional space for assemblies on these products," he said, "it's really been a companywide, plantwide effort."

DeForest, Wis.-based Evco Medical had expected "large growth" this year, Kate Bashir, strategic sales executive, told Plastics News, but it saw demand rise in sectors it had not predicted.

"Our medical business ramped up significantly as a few of our customers make parts for COVID test kits," Bashir said.

"Traditionally we work weekends as needed," she said. "To staff up for full-time 24/7 production was challenging, but we're working through it."

Evco anticipates retaining the "significant rise" in demand from its medical customers through the fourth quarter of 2020, Bashir said, though it has seen some of its other customers, in sectors including agriculture and appliance, pick up again in the third quarter.

"Our main priority was keeping our people employed," she said.

Evco designed a molded headband for face shields, which was made available on Amazon. That development gave Evco's employees work and a way to "contribute something positive" to the fight against the pandemic, Bashir said.

"Forecasting and planning ahead for what those employees could do while the nonessential market customers were down" was a challenge, she said. "We were able to take some operators from another plant and move them to our medical business."

When Troy, Mich.-based Cadillac Products Automotive Co. and its sister firm Cadillac Products Packaging Co. moved to make film to donate protective gowns to tri-state area hospitals, it started receiving inquiries from new customers for the material, Casey Turner, sales and marketing specialist at Cadillac, said.

"It has turned into a good business, and we're running a dedicated line making the material," Turner told Plastics News.

Cadillac has also been supplying materials for flexible packaging for soap and hand sanitizers, he said.

"We see that continuing as people change their hygiene habits," Turner said. "We've also developed a release film for polyester face shields.

"That capacity was made available because other industries have been slow due to the pandemic," he added.