Mass Transit - 29

Freedman Seating

"Our company has outstanding employees that had one thing
in common: an absolute sense of
mission to supply much needed
PPE," said Mike Schuch, president, Graffiti Shield.

Recruiting Resources for
the Local Community

American Seating also has been
supplying PPE after being recruited by Irwin Seating, a west
Michigan-based company, to
help supply face masks to Spectrum Health, a hospital system
in west Michigan.
"When the call came in early April to make medical-grade
masks, it wasn't difficult to adapt
our production to meet this
need," said Kevin Koehler, vice
president of manufacturing,
American Seating.
The designs for the masks were
created by Grand Rapids-based
Steelcase and then shared with
other companies, including Irwin
Seating, explains Koehler. Irwin
Seating then helped American

Seating procure the appropriate
materials and provided training
on how to make the masks. Production and delivery took American Seating about four days from
the time it committed to making
the masks. Since it started, the
company has made 4,500 masks.
"When [employees] heard that
the masks were needed by Spectrum Health - that they would be
helping healthcare providers right
here in our community - they
felt this was an important thing
to do," said Tom Bush, president
and COO of American Seating.
"We are additionally compen-

A MASK is sewn
at Freedman
Seating. The
company started
producing masks
for employees
when PPE
supplies were
being reserved
for essential
workers.

HOSPITALS THAT
received USSC's
protective
face shields
sent thank you
messages to the
company.

USSC

sating the employees working on
the masks [to] show our gratitude
for their willingness to come into
the factory and do this good work
during this crisis."
The face masks could potentially create a new vertical market
beyond the COVID-19 crisis for
American Seating, as the company
recognizes the demand for more
products to be made in America
says Bush. He notes that several
customers have inquired about
face masks beyond the pandemic-masks not just for medical
purposes but also for manufacturing and other environments.
"We're seeing a need, so we're
exploring it," Bush said. "We would
need to ramp up production, potentially add a shift and of course
market the product. It wouldn't be
difficult to do; it's a business decision that needs to be explored."
While the company assesses
the possibility of continuing face
mask production, it will continue to focus on its normal operations, which ramped up May 4
after halting productions March
30 due to changing stay-at-home
orders and agencies unable to
accept deliveries. Now, Bush says
the company is receiving several
inquiries about its seating products and other applications to
keep people safe.

Making Masks Leads
to New Products

While American Seating and
Graffiti Shield were asked to help
with the PPE supply shortage for
their local communities, Freedman Seating started producing
face masks out of necessity to help
keep internal employees safe when
face masks were difficult to obtain.
"We needed to supply PPE
to our employees and were having trouble buying masks in the
marketplace," said Dan Cohen,
president, Freedman Seating.
"Even when we could find a supplier with a few hundred masks,
we felt a certain responsibility to leave those available for

JUNE 2020 | MassTransitmag.com | Mass Transit |

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