Global Safety Products

When the company’s long-standing customer, a global safety products company, received a direct call from U.S. Federal Government officials with an urgent request for massive shipments of personal protection equipment (PPE), they reached out to Novation to ramp up production, including injection molding and assembly. Within days of the request, the engineering and production team tripled volumes of the face protection products through rapid hiring, immediate raw material sourcing and employing ingenuity in manufacturing processes to speed production and efficiencies. Within a couple of weeks, finished goods inventories were tripled and drop shipped to federal government locations for urgent distribution.

“We held a meeting within days of the call from the U.S. Federal Government to get manufacturing started and strategize how to significantly increase production volume and Novation was able to immediately respond.”

Project Summary:

• Design modifications
• Material engineering
• Injection molding
• Packaging
• Logistics

Design modifications Material engineering Injection molding Packaging Logistics CHALLENGE: In the Spring of 2020, Novation’s customer, a global safety products company, received a call from the federal government ordering a large shipment of face protection products to be distributed around the country in response to the spreading pandemic. After they received the call, they looked to their long-standing U.S. manufacturing partners to help fulfill orders quickly. Novation Industries, one of the company’s long-term and primary domestic manufacturing partners, needed to find a way to work with their customer to immediately ramp up production, source needed raw materials and deliver products within a week.

SOLUTION: Novation’s commitment to on-time delivery included an immediate investment in a tripling its production labor pool and an additional investment in new injection molding tools to allow for concurrent production lines. Novation also capitalized $120,000 in automation, including labeling and packaging equipment to ensure a high level of throughput. The project had a positive impact on local employment in and around McHenry, IL.

With a weekly production volume of tens of thousands of PPE items, combined with the anticipation of shortages of specialized safety resins and parts, Novation saw a need to finance the procurement of all raw materials upfront for production through September. Company personnel at Novation preordered the full supply of production and raw materials to avoid any shortages and mitigate risks that could delay delivery of products to health networks.

With longstanding and extensive experience in engineering and producing chemical and environmental safety products, including impact-resistant resins and specialty materials, Novation was able to ensure delivery of a high level of quality and integrity during the health crisis.

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