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Contract Manufacturing in the Time of COVID-19
By Michael Skinner, Editor D
ue to the outbreak of COVID- 19, products once used prima- rily for hospitals, such as vinyl
gloves and surgical masks, are sud- denly disappearing before they can hit the shelves. This increase in de- mand for medical supplies has kicked contract manufacturers into over- drive, building ventilators, protective shields and other essential devices. According to several prominent con- tract manufacturers, the pandemic is fundamentally shifting how they do business.
Gary Walker, Vice President, JAVAD EMS
“The first thought was our em-
ployees,” says Gary Walker, vice president, JAVAD EMS. In the San Francisco Bay Area where JAVAD is located, the stay-at-home order was announced on March 16th and took effect at midnight. This gave the company only a few hours to work on shutting down the business. The company held meetings
with all of its staff to explain the sit- uation. Of course, the main thing the employees were worried about was a severe drop in pay. The decision was made at that time to pay each work- er 100 percent of their normal wages over the three-week period. “It was a cost we were willing to make to support our employees,
whom through no fault of their own, were being told to stay home for three weeks,” says Walker. “Our employees are our most valuable commodity, so at the end of the day, it was a pretty straightforward decision to make.” The next step was to ensure
that the company’s support staff could work from home. Laptops were quickly obtained, set up and distrib- uted to those who could use them to support production requirements while working remotely.
some limited amount of our produc- tion staff return to work to support essential customers, like those in medical, military and aerospace, and infrastructure,” says Walker. “We had to have some extensive planning to best keep people apart in all areas of the facility — the polar opposite of our normal daily production process- es of minimal movement and maxi- mum space utilization.” Even the company’s cafeteria
and break areas were revamped to accommodate six-foot distancing. Production workbenches and proces - ses were set up so that nobody works adjacent to each other, using a “drop off and leave” and “retrieve” process for PCBs and materials. Volunteers adopted different shift schedules to reduce the number of employees in the building at any given time. These measures made the com-
pany less efficient, but ensured that JAVAD met or exceeded the guide- lines issued by the CDC for the health and safety of its employees, while meeting the needs of its critical customers. As for the day-to-day business
“After we were able to fully di-
gest and understand the shelter in place order, and after discussions with customers, we started to have
of planning and executing material, Walker says that the company has seen little change. There have been no price fluctuations (gouging) from any of its suppliers and no significant supply disruptions for its material
orders. Walker concludes, “We have very strong relationships and a reli- able group of suppliers with whom we have partnered for the past 10 years, so that definitely helps to have that loyalty in tough times. All of our suppliers have stepped up and are doing all they can to support our needs.”
Jed Jones, Vice President of Sales, Inovar
Inovar’s medical customers, in-
cluding BioFire, have designated the company as critical to their opera- tions and public safety. BioFire’s di- agnostic equipment was authorized
June, 2020
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