The COVID-19 Pandemic has affected all businesses and industries throughout the past two years. Extreme Molding was no exception. Luckily, our team has pushed forward and continued to work hard to make our partner’s products thrive. To continue both our team’s and partner’s success, we have implemented some new strategies within our company and warehouse to ensure maximum health, safety, and quality. Here are just some of the changes and impacts that have come about for Extreme Molding and the injection molding industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how we plan to continue to succeed in the future.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned that social distancing was essential to decrease the chances of transmitting the virus to others. Prior to the pandemic, much of our warehouse operated in an assembly line style working environment. However, with social distancing mandates and to keep our workers safe and healthy, we have switched to more individual work cells.
Cleaning and sanitizing the warehouse, work areas, and products has been imperative throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep our products and warehouse clean, our company hired a professional cleaning company. We also changed workstation layouts as mentioned previously, with each workstation now including a substantial supply of sanitizing materials. All employees continue to wear gloves when handling machinery and products, as well as masks according to New York State mandates.
Just like other companies and industries in the world, Extreme Molding and the injection molding industry have been affected by the labor shortage. It has been difficult to find quality employees throughout the shortage, as well as fewer people doing jobs that once had a large pool of applicants. This has in turn increased labor costs all around for not only our company but the entire injection molding industry as well.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall costs in the injection molding industry have increased drastically. There has been a silicon metal shortage leading to an impact on material pricing and availability. There have also been other supply chain disruptions leading to increased lead times on molds and packaging supplies.
With the rise of labor issues, Extreme Molding turned to automation to aid in operations. The team successfully implemented their first collaborative robot in a deflashing operation. Due to its success, Extreme Molding is in the process of scaling to more robotics that could potentially aid in machine operation, deflashing and packaging. Another possibility for automation currently being explored is vision systems that will aid in the inspection process.
At Extreme Molding we are taking the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the injection molding industry and implementing new strategies and processes to stay at the forefront of the industry and continue our success. If you have any questions about our COVID-19 protocols or strategies, please contact us.