Mold Builder Looks for Opportunity; Leverages Network to Take on Challenges from Coronavirus

 

“We look at the opportunities the coronavirus presents and try not to focus on the negative,” says Mark Ypsilantis, business development manager at MGS Mfg Group in Germantown, Wisconsin.

Whether launching a new program, completing a tool transfer or introducing equipment process technologies into a complex application, MGS delivers innovative solutions, and right now this mold manufacturer has capacity within its tooling, equipment and molding businesses to keep manufacturing moving despite some ordered shutdowns across the country.

MGS is a tier one supplier to some of the largest diagnostics companies in the world, so interrupting that supply chain with shutdown policies right now is not a smart move. MGS sees increased demand for a variety of products such as packaging for new disinfectant hospital wipes and dispensing closures for hand sanitizer.

On top of that, MGS is considering other product type demands that might be initiated with this virus. It’s not just diagnostic products. “What about new tooling for disinfectant containers, drug delivery, and blood handling (IV connectors, syringes and shields) products?” Ypsilantis says.  Plus, a lack of supply for ventilator components has companies not typically in that space joining the fight to start producing necessary medical products. “It’s all about leveraging your network,” Ypsilantis says.

Focusing on opportunity, MGS also believes in turning challenge into change. Ypsilantis says that in the end this virus will not only have us rethinking offshore dependence and speeding up reshoring, it will bring about new ways of communication, collaboration, learning and increasing efficiencies. “For example, when it comes to our factory acceptance testing in our sampling facility right now, we are taking videos of the mold running with the processor. We are now doing virtual mold trials.”

The key right now for MGS is keeping the workforce who is producing product healthy to maintain capacity. So, the company is insulating those people. On the tooling side they are spreading out shifts with some workers doing a second shift when there are fewer people working.