ATSSA Signal July/August 2020

The Signal | July/August 2020 9 COVID-19 ATSSA members pitch in amid COVID-19 crisis By Emily Freehling for The Signal As thenationdrew to a halt this spring, many ATSSA members geared up, shift- ing daily operations to contribute to the pandemic response. For some companies, that meant repur- posing goods that had been used for the kinds of large-scale events that disap- pearedovernight as governors across the countrybeganshuttingdown their states. Oregon-based Alert Safety Supply, for example,sawthetrafficcontroltrailersthat hadoncebeenrented for crowdcontrol at events turned intomessageboardsurging thepublic tostayhometokeepthenation’s health care systems frombecoming over- whelmed by COVID-19 cases. Alert Safety Supply also sawfirsthand the supply-chain disruption that resulted as governments worldwide began placing enormousorders forhandsanitizer, protec- tivemasks, and other supplies. ATSSAmembers 3MandAveryDennison sawdivisions of their companies step up their efforts to try to ease some of that supply crunch. At the onset of the virus outbreak, 3M doubled its output of facepiece respira- torsworldwide. In theUnitedStates at the beginning of May, 3M was producing 35 million N95 respirators per month, with more than 90 percent of them going to healthcare workers, and had begun to make investments to double its output of respirators again within the next 12 months, according to company releases. 3M also worked with Ford to develop a new design for a powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR) for health care profes- sionals, which includes a hood and face shield that covers their head and shoul- ders, while a high-efficiency (HEPA) filter systemprovides a supplyof filteredair for uptoeighthoursonasinglebatterycharge. AveryDennison’smedical divisionadapted itsmanufacturing lines toproducedispos- ableplastic faceshields formedical profes- sionals. The company then announced Oregon-based Alert Safety Supply’s traffic control trailers shifted this spring from helping with events to providing messages to urge people to “Stay Home” to help slow the spread of COVID-19.