Using CNC to diversify and make a difference during COVID
As the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic extends into the summer months, more and more businesses are having to adjust their strategies to remain profitable and to ensure they are capable of weathering this global crisis.
Among these businesses are several ShopSabre customers, who are taking the pandemic as an opportunity to diversify their service offerings and to make a difference in the world and in the industries most in need.
Here are a few examples of ShopSabre customers using their CNC routers and talent to meet the shifting demands of the times.
Hatch Exhibits
Hatch Exhibits a custom trade show booth and exhibit designer located just outside of Baltimore experienced the need to adjust its business once the coronavirus started turning the events it relied on so heavily into teleconferences.
The brand became aware of the need for personal protective equipment and began making face shields and gowns it is now selling to healthcare systems across the country. Production volume grew rapidly, and the manufacturer formerly used to building only one version of large products was now producing smaller products hundreds of thousands of times each.
Hatch Exhibits is now providing frontline responders, people in nursing homes, nurses, doctors, fire stations, and more with the equipment they need to continue playing a key role in fighting the virus on an up-close scale.
Bowling Woodworking
Bowling Woodworking near Sarasota, Florida, specializes in the manufacture of specialized cased goods, cabinetry for the veterinary industry, pet grooming parts, tabletops, and parts for the marine industry. When the pandemic broke out and customers stopped receiving and making orders, Bowling shifted its production toward highly needed healthcare products.
One particular customer was in need of workstation partitions to help its employees socially distance from one another amid the virus, which Bowling took the lead on producing in-house. Bowling has also helped make plastic face shields designed to be inexpensive and functional for Atlanta-area hospitals and local services in Florida.
Custom Crating
Custom Crating is a Seattle-based designer and manufacturer of road cases, pallets, skids, shipping containers, and more. Once business started to slow back in March, the owner was made aware of a hospitals need for personal protective equipment and face shields.
Custom Crating was asked to cut vinyl for the face shields for hospital workers in Seattle. It used the vacuum technology of its ShopSabre CNC router and its drag knife experience to cut the vinyl and help make a difference. The brand invites others in the industry to work within their network to find out how you can help, and to do so if you have the ability.
Prime Manufacturers
Located in Minneapolis, Prime Manufacturers originally worked with plastics but has now specifically geared its efforts toward face shields for local hospitals. In doing so, it has helped doctors and nurses continue to fight the virus despite being unable to acquire all the materials they need.
Prime is able to complete both prototyping and project phases with its ShopSabre CNC router, achieving versatility and efficiency to keep up with the new and rising demand from the healthcare space. The business is now seeing more volume than ever and is rising to this newfound and urgent challenge.
Help fight COVID-19 with ShopSabre
Despite the outbreak, ShopSabre is fully operational, providing American-made machines to American manufacturers so industries in need can do their part.
Our world-leading CNC machines provide precision, efficiency, and total versatility to help aspiring hobbyists and full-time commercial shop owners alike produce truly outstanding results with a fraction of the labor. Shop our unmatched collection of CNC routers and plasmas in Minneapolis today to take your shops quality and productivity to the next level.