A short seven months ago, most of us didn’t even know what PPE stood for. But for some manufacturers across the state, pivoting to the production of personal protection equipment — from sneeze guards to hand sanitizer to face masks — has helped keep customers safe and employees busy. Most of all, manufacturers say, it has helped them help their communities.
Elizabeth Pitchford, project manager with Ruggles Sign in Versailles, said their business opted to start making see-through plastic barriers after a customer asked if they could.
“Our customer knew we did operate in plastic and asked if we could do something like that,” she said. “Once we looked at it, we knew it was a natural shift for us to take.”
According to Ruggles president Tim Cambron, in late March DHL shipping reached out with a request for sneeze guards. After about 24 hours, Cambron said, his company had put together a prototype and produced 120 sneeze guards for their client. Since then, dozens of other clients have requested the same product.
While demand for the product has declined some, Cambron said, school openings in the area have created an uptick in orders.
Other companies, like Bullard, a safety equipment company headquartered in Cynthiana and with facilities in Lexington, were already creating face shields and other PPE and have seen a significant increase in demand. According to one press release, the company saw demand for its products reaching as much as 30-times its normal orders.
Bullard teamed with Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), who worked with Bullard team members to apply the Toyota Production System into Bullard’s manufacturing process. That meant shifting from a one-person unit system to a more assembly line process, where multiple people each have a part in creating the product.
The result meant a 700-percent increase in production for Bullard between March and April.
Bullard employee Abby Cooper works on the company’s new sewing line. Bullard teamed with Toyota Production System Support Center to greatly increase its PPE production capacity.
“We are very grateful for the partnership with Toyota and proud of what we have accomplished together,” Wells Bullard, CEO of Bullard, said in a statement. “We are driven every single day to advance human safety and it was incredible to see that Toyota shares that same mission. It’s in Bullard’s DNA to protect people and save lives — we’ve been doing it for more than 120 years, starting with our invention of the hard hat.”
Across the state, other manufacturers have stepped up as well, said Jack Mazurak, Communications Director for the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development (KCED).
“Some facilities established separate production areas and processes for PPE. Others, especially those already in the industry, continued and increased their output,” he said. “Interestingly, some Kentucky distilleries have made sanitizer production a permanent part of their business.”
Hand sanitizer production at Buffalo Trace Distillery
More than 30 distilleries across the state have begun to make hand sanitizer. Through a partnership between the Kentucky Distilleries Association, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and KCED, businesses who need hand sanitizer can purchase it without having to contact the distilleries directly, but by going to kyhandsanitizer.com instead and filling out a request.
The cabinet also established a list of manufacturers in Kentucky and what they produced to help companies within Kentucky find producers of PPE if they needed it, he said.
“In many of the cases our Cabinet tracked, Kentucky manufacturers opted to fill local, regional and state needs first. That includes a significant amount of donated products,” he said. “However, others in the PPE industry already had established customer networks, which could take their products nationally and globally. Further, companies with existing relationships with big-box stores and major online retailers likely saw their products go geographically further.”
But the impact to the manufacturers’ bottom lines wasn’t nearly as impactful as the impact the companies could have on fighting the pandemic, Mazurak said.
"Certainly, PPE production helped many businesses offset some pandemic-related losses for businesses, but many companies also donated large amount of PPE to first responders and frontline operations.” — Jack Mazurak, Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development
“Overall, it’s fair to say in many cases profit came as a secondary concern to helping to limit the spread of COVID-19. Certainly, PPE production helped many businesses offset some pandemic-related losses for businesses, but many companies also donated large amount of PPE to first responders and frontline operations,” he said. “It’s important to note, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear encouraged the state’s manufacturers to produce PPE as they could, and highlighted companies that found ways to contribute. Kentucky plays a nationally outsized role in manufacturing, so we as a state had a lot to give. With nearly 13 percent of Kentucky’s workforce in manufacturing, versus a national average of 8.5 percent, facilities in the state have been able to make significant contributions to PPE production when the nation needed it most.”
According to the Kentucky Center for Statistics, Kentucky manufacturers added 26,500 jobs between May 2020 and June 2020, second only to job additions in the hospitality and leisure industry, which added 33,200 jobs during the same time period. Most of those, 26,400, were in the food service and accommodations subsector.
From March to April, at the height of stayat- home orders, manufacturing employment fell by 54,500 jobs, according to the Center, the equivalent of a 21.7 percent decline. In March, Ford and Toyota laid off 20,000 workers. Over a seven-week period at the beginning of the pandemic, as much as 30 percent of Kentucky’s workforce claimed unemployment.
Ruggles’ Cambron said keeping his employees working was one part of his decision to make the sneeze guards, but more importantly to him it was about making a difference in his community.
“The truth of the matter is it absolutely did keep people employed, but it was not about creating another profit center for us,” Cambron said. “It was an easy move to make. For me, it was more about doing what we could to get the world back on track.”