Ox Box Discovers (CONT’D FROM PAGE 1 )
what was lost by shutting Ox Box for a week, the company lost the production of six employees – out of a total of 30 production floor employees – for an additional two weeks. What’s Next? In those first tentative days of the plant’s reopening and with all employees back on the job, Ockerlund was compelled to do whatever he could to prevent another COVID-19 incident, or worse. “We changed our procedures and began to scan every- one who came into the building – employees, visitors and vendors – with handheld thermal scanners,” said Ocker- lund. “But we only had two of them because there weren’t many available at the time because the demand was so high. It created delays for everyone coming into the shop and I was basically putting my supervisor in harm’s way because he had to be close to our employees, six of whom had already been diagnosed. It became a problem, so I started reaching out for another solution.” Ockerlund reached out to friends, colleagues and trade associations, AICC included, for possible solutions before someone from a local trade association put him in touch with Chris Misztur, a developer who was close to finish- ing work on a touchless thermal scanning unit called Fa- cemate. Ockerlund liked all the safety features Facemate offered – the single pane of glass to monitor access and temperatures, the guaranteed low false positives and false negatives, and the alerts that he and any member of the
well or acting normally. The supervisor pulled the “sick” worker aside and took his temperature. Over a hundred, too high. They sent him to get tested on Friday morning but since Illinois was then having a problem with rapid testing, the ultimate result – positive for coronavirus! – did not arrive until the following Tuesday morning. Ockerlund was forced to shut down operations immediately and sent every other employee out to be tested. Now there were questions: How many others might “employee zero” have infected before he was discovered? How long would Ox Box have to be shut down? How many other employees might get sick? How many others had gone home and already spread the virus to their family? Might someone die? These questions kept Guy Ockerlund awake for many nights, especially during those first scary days. Two more “positive” came back quickly. A few days lat- er there were three more. The plant was completely shut down for a full week. The five other employees who tested positive were all asymptomatic but had to be quarantined. In three days, all of them developed symptoms typical of coronavirus infection: flu-like symptoms, headache, fa- tigue, but nothing serious enough to require hospitaliza- tion. In another three days, all six (patient zero and the five others he presumably infected) had recovered but were still quarantined at home. They had to be re-tested before they were allowed to come back to work. In addition to
CONTINUED ON PAGE 36
Do you need printed sheets? We have your answer.. Introducing Heartland’s ColorCorr. This is “flexo-printing in the round”. On our corrugator we can print up to 109” wide. The advantage is that we can print the equivalent of ½ roll at a time and not be required to keep several rolls of very expensive preprinted paper on the floor. Much less waste and risk. In continual print mode, we use either laser-engraved rubber rolls or solid rubber rolls to print a “flood coat” or a repeating pattern. If we are printing a repeating pattern, we can run a two-color design on the paper. Customers have found that running sheets we print can allow them to run a lighter-grade due to reduced caliper loss, and in some cases eliminate one or more machine passes.
For more information contact: Charlie Freeman | 816-500-8889 | cfreeman@heartlandsheets.com Tim Kramer | 816-841-8317 | color@heartlandsheets.com
34
www.boardconvertingnews.com
September 14, 2020
Made with FlippingBook Annual report