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Let’s start with a Styrofoam cup. At one of Bradbury Group’s facilities, an employee pointed out a risk: anyone could touch the cups stacked up in the breakroom, potentially leaving traces of COVID-19. So the company installed a cup dispenser instead.

It sounds small, but this decision exemplifies Bradbury’s thorough approach to employee safety. So does another fact: the metal processing equipment company created a 66-page “pandemic handbook” of safety procedures, which includes a guide to good decision-making, for its facilities worldwide.

As businesses of all sorts reopen, they’re searching for best practices like these. So we recently asked Bradbury CEO David Cox for some advice.

First, a hot topic for employers. Do you use temperature checks at your facilities?

• “No, we felt that having 300 people gathering in close quarters at one entrance would be counterproductive. We did our research, and temperature checks don’t seem to be that effective,” says Cox.
• The company keeps infrared thermometers on hand for any workers who feel ill, he adds.

And what about social distancing? Cox says the company has provided face shields or masks to all employees. They must wear those coverings when standing closer than 6 feet to each other.

How do you get information out? Department managers hold stand-up briefings on Mondays (originally Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to keep workers informed, he says, along with a daily safety briefing. Also important: a weekly email briefing from the CEO covering a variety of important updates. .

• It includes the latest safety procedures, infection rates for the surrounding areas, warnings about the tricks scammers are using to steal stimulus checks and updates on tornado season.

How do you keep people safe on the road?

• “We analyze every stop our employees make. Our health and safety coordinator contacts every vendor on a route to evaluate their safety policies—sharing a copy of our handbook when necessary,” says Cox.
• “If they don’t meet our standards, our people don’t go.”

What about incoming shipments from suppliers?

• “We do the same process in reverse—we find out where those drivers go on their routes. If we don’t like what we hear, we have the driver stay in the truck while our employees unload.”

This is how seriously Bradbury takes those restrictions:

• “We kept one routine vendor away for the whole month of April due to an outbreak in their county. We didn’t even want their vehicles in our parking lot, given the anxiety that would create for our employees.”

Let’s move on to cleaning. What are your procedures?

• “We have several dedicated workers walk through the facility to sanitize hard-surface touchpoints, multiple times a shift.”
• “Workers have chlorine spray bottles and wipes for their keyboard and screens, and for any parts they pass from workstation to workstation.”

Meanwhile, Bradbury’s health and safety coordinator, Tasha Schmeidler, is an EMT, which comes in handy.

• She oversees symptom tracking and contact tracing and has full authority to quarantine any workers who may be sick or exposed–with pay if they were exposed on the job.

Lastly, how have your workers improved your protocols?

• “The extra cleaning solution on tables and stations—that was an employee suggestion. They even thought of putting wipes on the inventory pickers, so they could clean items as they took things down,” says Cox. (And, of course, there’s the Styrofoam cups.)

These precautions don’t just keep workers physically safe, but also make them feel comfortable coming to work and confident in their management. As businesses of all sorts reopen, manufacturers like Bradbury are showing them how.

Related: Don’t forget to check out of operational and safety practices, recently released by the 51�Թ���’s Manufacturing Leadership Council.

At several facilities in Arizona, health care providers are wearing camouflage-patterned gowns. It sounds too good to be true, but it is: manufacturer W. L. Gore & Associates donated its fabric laminate—normally used in protective outerwear for the military and others—to be sewn into gowns by local apparel manufacturers. In total, Gore’s materials will be used to make 40,000 gowns nationwide, though only a fraction will be patterned.

And that’s only the start. Gore, a maker of everything from medical devices to fabrics to cables and more, is producing a variety of PPE products, including a few new inventions. Here’s a look at how much a single manufacturer is doing during the COVID-19 crisis.

Respirator covers: In less than a week, Gore developed a prototype for a cover that can prolong the use and reuse of N95 respirators.

• An accordion-folded piece of filtration material, with holes punched at either end, the cover is easy to make yet powerful.
• It’s made of proprietary ePTFE filtration laminate, which protects against 99% of aerosolized particles, and can be decontaminated for reuse.

Thousands of covers have been produced so far, and they’re already in use at health care centers across the country.

Respirator cartridges: The company also developed cartridges that can be incorporated into respirators, hoods and ventilators. These work with a variety of designs, whether produced by 3D printing or injection molding.

N95 respirators: Gore is collaborating with other manufacturers to produce respirators, which remain in high demand.

• Multiple manufacturers have developed prototypes with Gore’s filtration materials, which keep out more than 95% of particles at 0.07 microns in size. Currently, all these partners are in the process of obtaining emergency use authorization from the FDA.

And here’s a great number: the company plans to donate enough material to make about 1.5 million N95 respirators.

Engineering services: Gore is providing engineering and prototyping support to hospitals that need new designs or components.

• The company recently made components for face shields, donating 1,000 shields to local providers.

That’s a lot for one company, and there’s more in the pipeline. Manufacturers like Gore prove that the industry is finding as many ways as possible to be of service.

The Manufacturing Leadership Council, a division of the 51�Թ���, has unveiled a new . This follows more than 50 days of the 51�Թ��� and the MLC’s joint emergency collaboration—which not only disseminates crucial information to manufacturers, but also brings them together to learn from each other and lead the country toward a successful recovery and renewal.

What to look for: Among the new online resources, “” outlines practices that can help manufacturers meet or exceed federal guidelines while also reducing operational and business risks.

What it includes: The document covers a range of practices that manufacturers can use to protect themselves and their employees, including:

• Site access practices including restricted visitor access, self-certification questionnaires and temperature screening
• Workstation social distancing measures including barriers, facial coverings and regular cleanings
• Facilities and traffic management to reduce gatherings and the use of high-touch surfaces
• Shift and team design practices to reduce widespread interactions and encourage touchless hand-offs
• Illness or diagnosis response plans like contact tracing and partnerships with community health officials
• Essential travel policies, such as requiring PPE use at remote worksites
• Plans for returning nonessential workers that reinforce protocols and prioritize on-site roles

51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons says: “Manufacturers have been on the front lines throughout this crisis, and this guide leverages the experiences and real-world practices that manufacturers across America have put into place.”

The last word: Timmons has a for all Americans, whether they work in manufacturing or not: “Wear a face covering.”

How do you keep health care workers safe during COVID-19? It’s one of the most crucial questions of the pandemic. One manufacturer came up with an answer: build them portable booths that mimic clean rooms.

Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope–a company that manufactures glazed products like windows, storefronts, and safety glass—has created a small glass enclosure that shields a health care worker from patients while allowing her to do her job.

The company thinks it could be a gamechanger—by decreasing health care workers’ exposure to the virus and greatly reducing their need for personal protective equipment (along with the time spent changing in and out of it).

How it works: The booth’s modular glass system is easy to clean and assemble. It features:

• Built-in gloves that allow health care workers to examine patients without exposing themselves.
• Positive air pressure to keep outside air from filtering in.
• A powerful filtration system—backed up with the company’s airtight window technologies—that keeps the air inside clean and safe.

How they built it: It was a Herculean effort—the company crammed a development process that normally takes a year into a monthlong sprint.

• On March 23, the idea was hatched.
• Four days later, OBE came up with seven potential designs, then reviewed them until they found the best one.
• Within three weeks, the company had purchased parts, treated materials, and built two working prototypes.
• Less than 29 days after the idea was first discussed, OBE manufactured its first booth.

What’s next? OBE has submitted its designs to regulatory authorities, including the FDA. Once the design is approved:

• Within two weeks, the company expects to start production of its first orders
• With more than 80 locations in the US and Canada, OBE could deploy the technology across North America.

And there’s more…The booth could even feature in the reopening of the economy. OBE has designed a second version for workers who need to be in close proximity without contact, like ticket takers at movie theaters, sports venues and airports.

Here’s another question: what’s one of the most important forces helping to save lives during the pandemic? Answer: manufacturers’ ingenuity.

One Sunday, it was a text message; two weeks later, it was a product ready for shipment. That’s how fast Acuity Brands sprang into action, after realizing that the temporary hospitals opening around the country needed something very basic: good, reliable lighting.

Without exam lighting, doctors and nurses can’t see what they’re doing. And patients need to be able to read books and see their surroundings at night.

Acuity Brands, a maker of lighting products, answered all these different needs with one ingenious design. Its portable healthcare light stand, which meets all lighting requirements set out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Health and Human Services for alternate care sites, includes:

• A medical exam light
• A reading light for patients
• A night light for nurses
• Outlets for charging patients’ smartphones or tablets
• An IV hanger bar that eliminates the need for a separate IV pole

How it works: All of these come together in one package, which can be assembled in under five minutes and folded up for storage or redeployment in a new hotspot.

How they made it: CEO Neil Ashe encouraged employees to “think outside the box” about how the company could aid the COVID-19 response effort, says Mike Montgomery, Vice President of Applied IOT Solution Sales. Here’s what happened next:

• One Sunday afternoon, three engineers exchanged ideas by text message and began sending sketches around for a possible prototype.
• On Monday morning, the design went to the shop for construction.
• On Tuesday afternoon, a working prototype was completed.
• By Wednesday, they’d built a full working unit.
• Less than two weeks later, Acuity Brands had shipped the first 30 units to an alternate care site in Michigan—and two weeks after that, it sent an additional 1000 working units to other sites across the country.

Acuity Brands squeezed a development process that usually takes up to a year into two weeks—and its leaders are using what they learned to streamline the usual processes, making them faster and stronger for normal times.

So far, the stands are already being used in temporary hospitals in Michigan, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. The company also has pending orders for shipments to Mexico and South America—plus 1,000 additional units in inventory ready to ship.

It wasn’t quite the speed of light, but this lighting stand moved pretty darn fast. Manufacturers like Acuity Brands are making the response to COVID-19 faster, safer, more comfortable—and better lit.

It was around 10:00 p.m. EST when Pfizer got the call. The USNS Comfort—the massive naval hospital ship stationed in New York harbor—needed an emergency order of sterile injectables. Its first COVID-19 cases were arriving on board.

The Comfort had sailed into NYC to treat non-COVID patients and relieve the burden on hospitals. But as ERs and ICUs overflowed, it had to take COVID cases as well. And the ship wasn’t prepared.

That’s when a manufacturer stepped in. Here’s what happened:

On board: 25 ICU patients arrived from a Brooklyn hospital and required immediate medical attention.

• The doctors on the Comfort needed 9 different medications to treat them, but they didn’t have any in stock.
• Most crucially, they needed the sedatives necessary for intubation, should patients need to be put on ventilators.
• So they called Pfizer.

What happened next: Though not an emergency response team, Pfizer’s Hospital Business Unit came together quickly and worked through the night. Here are a few hurdles they faced:

• Logistics: The medications had to be routed through centers in Tennessee and Wisconsin and then delivered directly to the Comfort.
• Transportation: They chartered two planes on short notice, to ensure same-day delivery.

Within 24 hours of the initial call, 4,100 units of medication arrived on the Comfort, and medical workers could treat the patients on board. Several more shipments would follow in the coming days, after the emergency had passed.

Weeks later, the Comfort left New York City’s harbor with its mission complete, thanks in no small part to a manufacturer. This is how the industry is responding to the pandemic: at short notice, at odd hours, and with a sense of duty.

What’s it like to work in a manufacturing plant during the pandemic? The 51�Թ���’s staff photographer took a trip to the Hershey facility in Hershey, PA, to find out. Here’s what he saw.

At the entrance, employees’ temperatures are checked. Either in their cars…

Or upon entering the facility. By then, workers have already put on masks.

All around the facility, workers are sanitizing equipment—from machinery to desks to keyboards. They go through this procedure multiple times a production shift.

Walk into the cafeteria, and you’ll see a new table design—yellow tape shows workers where to sit to maintain a safe social distance.

No more huddles—all meetings take place at a distance.

Below, a trainer and trainee use a two-way radio while social distancing, in order to hear each other over the noise of the machinery.

The control room has some new décor: vinyl sheets, which create clear cubicles around each worker.

Hershey’s chocolate production goes on much like before, keeping America stocked with the famous brand’s familiar treats.

But meanwhile, the company is also lending a hand—by helping to source, store and distribute medical supplies within its community. The boxes below contain sterile exam gloves for the Penn State Health System.

Because it instituted precautions early on, Hershey’s workforce has stayed healthy. As Senior Director of Manufacturing Tim Hinegardner said, “The safety of our team is our top priority and always has been. Hershey made chocolate throughout the Great Depression and two world wars, for both soldiers and civilians. We’ll persevere through this, too.”

For most people, foam does not sound like a crucial part of the COVID-19 pandemic response effort—but it is. Adhesive-backed foam is used in making face shields and other personal protective gear for health care responders, and LAMATEK, Inc., a New Jersey-based manufacturer of flexible foam tapes, gaskets and custom parts, has stepped up to support frontline workers.

When the pandemic hit the region, the company initially intended to use its equipment and workforce to manufacture face shields for the local community, but it soon discovered it had a larger role to play. After listening to customers and other community organizations, LAMATEK’s leaders realized they could provide more value by supporting personal protective needs nationwide. Today, company leaders estimate that they have already supplied between four and five million pieces of foam for face shields.

“We thought we’d make face shields for our community—but then we found out that people were having issues finding components, and the main thing they needed was foam for face shields,” said LAMATEK Vice President Laura Basara. “So we ended up sticking to what we know and producing as much foam as we could for people in need across the country.”

Basara is also a 2017 —a distinction conferred by to recognize women in science, technology, engineering and production careers who exemplify leadership within their companies.

The need for foam has been widespread, and other manufacturers have reconfigured their production lines to make protective gear as well. Basara said that LAMATEK has received inquiries from manufacturers who traditionally make everything from tractor parts to bicycles to leather bags.

“The whole community has come together to make this massive effort happen,” said Basara. “It’s heartwarming to see everyone doing everything they can.”

Basara credits health care providers with leading the fight against COVID-19, but she is also grateful for the men and women in America’s manufacturing workforce who are creating protective equipment, medical products and daily essentials.

“Critical is not even the word—they’re irreplaceable,” said Basara. “Without manufacturing, this country doesn’t run. Without our team on the line, we can’t solve this. They are our key players, and we are so grateful to them.”

“Manufacturers provide critical services, vital products and essential infrastructure across the country,” said President and CEO of the 51�Թ��� Jay Timmons. “Especially at this time of serious challenge, the work they do could not be more important.”

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Protolabs—a digital manufacturer of custom prototypes and on-demand production parts headquartered in Maple Plain, Minnesota—has prioritized the production of medical supplies and is already providing essential products to labs, hospitals and companies across the United States.

The company has seen an influx of COVID-19 related medical components needing urgent production, including test kits, ventilators, shields, masks and respirators. Across the company’s service lines—injection molding, CNC machining, 3D printing, and sheet metal fabrication—over 4 million COVID-19 related parts have been expedited at no charge.

Combating the virus has become the company’s highest priority. “We’re honored to do our part to help fight this virus,” said Protolabs President and CEO Vicki Holt. “We’ve been working nonstop to develop components needed for critical medical supplies, such as ventilators, respirators, test kits and shields, and we put internal protocols in place to prioritize these orders ahead of all others to get critical medical supplies into the market.”

With so many manufacturers working to support the pandemic response, each is attempting to find the best way to contribute effectively. On Protolabs’ end, its proprietary software converges software and hardware platforms, automating the front-end of the manufacturing process and moving parts across a multitude of processes out the door in as little as a day.

“The manufacturing industry has really rallied to produce critical supplies, with companies quickly shifting resources to answer the call,” said Holt. “Due to the exponential growth of COVID-19 cases, the speed of response is critical for our customers and our nation. At Protolabs, we have always prided ourselves on our speed—which enables us to cut new tools and ship parts in a matter of days in order to get them to the people who need them.”

“Manufacturing heroes have been a part of our country’s history since its inception, and that tradition continues today,” said 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons. “During this crisis and in the future, you can count on manufacturers to lead the way forward.”

Cooley Group, a Rhode Island manufacturer that makes engineered geomembranes, building products and commercial graphics, has taken on many roles in supporting the response to COVID-19.

As a company that already produces items like respiratory vests, blood pressure cuffs and medical bedding, Cooley was well versed in the materials needed to support patients and protect medical staff. As soon as the pandemic hit, it began working on testing and manufacturing medical gowns. Today, their facilities in South Carolina and Rhode Island are producing high-quality Level 3 and Level 4 medical gowns that protect against moderate and high risks—and those gowns are being shipped to medical professionals at a rate of approximately a million square feet per week.

“It took us about two weeks to develop the material, perform full testing and certification and roll it into what is now full-scale production,” said Cooley Group President and CEO Dan Dwight. “We’re shipping this out by the truckload.”

Cooley has also found other ways to respond to COVID-19. According to the company’s leadership, around 70 percent of the billboards in North America are printed on Cooley-produced material. Through a partnership with the Ad Council and outdoor media companies, Cooley has been donating material and services to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other entities that want to use those billboards for public messaging. Currently, there are more than 50 locations around the country where CDC messaging is printed on donated Cooley material.

As with any venture, Dwight’s advice to other manufacturers seeking to make a difference is to find the best application for your organization’s existing skills and assets.

“Our view was, we needed to pick our targeted sweet spots and then put all our effort into it,” said Dwight. “What do you already do well, and how do you apply it? We prioritize innovation, so we knew we could produce something that would be new and creative. We prioritize high performance, so we wanted to focus on higher-end products that take advantage of our capabilities.”

Dwight also believes that the cooperative nature of the manufacturing industry has been helpful in weathering difficult times.

“We’ve always had a collaborative culture, and we know the benefit of sharing best practices,” said Dwight. “Now that collaboration is not about Manufacturing 4.0 or the Internet of Things—it’s about surviving a pandemic. But it’s built into the way we do things.”

“Manufacturers across the country are working tirelessly to make sure that people have the products they need,” said 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons. “As we face this moment of uncertainty and challenge, manufacturers are showing again and again that we are committed to doing our part.”