VIDEO: TOOLING UP – U.S. Manufacturing Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Narrator: Welcome to Tooling Up, a series by MSC Industrial Supply Company that provides real-world insights brought to you by leading industry experts and aimed at improving the efficiency and productivity of your operations.

Goettler: Welcome to MSC's second episode of Tooling Up. My name is Jamie Goettler. Once again I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Scott Smith and Dr. Tom Kurfess. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us again. During the first episode you'll recall that we spoke about Executive Order 13806 and the assessment which found that the American manufacturing base had some areas for improvement and it was really based around the needs potentially if there was a homeland security threat. Now a year ago, though we didn't have a homeland security threat, we had the pandemic that happened with COVID-19 and Dr. Smith I'd love to start with you, you know what did that pandemic prove to us as it relates to Executive Order 130806?

Smith: Well thanks Jamie. I think what we saw is that the assessment in response to 13806 was accurate. You know what was true for national security issues is true for the economy generally. And so, for example, one of the things that was called out in the report was our overdependence on offshore resources and entities. We saw that in response to the pandemic when suddenly we had a surge in demand for personal protective equipment. We needed face masks, we needed test tubes for nasal swab samples, and so on. The lead time on the tooling to increase our production of those items is on the order of six months to a year, and that's without other people in the world competing for those resources. So all of a sudden there's a problem and, you know, a lot of rallies to address the issue, a lot of makers around the country used their capabilities to print, you know, halos for face shields and so on and God love them. You know they jumped into the fight and did their best and you know over a few weekends produced thousands of such devices. But of course if we could produce the tooling, you know, thousands of devices is kind of a bad hour in a production run with mass production tooling and so I think what we saw is that this over-reliance on foreign sources is a problem for the entirety of the economy.

Goettler: You know it was obvious Scott and thank you for your response. Tom, you know I'm curious as somewhat of a follow-up, I know you were right at the heart of you know making the adjustments. What can the U.S. do to respond to this, who can help, how can we help, and how did we respond? So Tom, tell me a little bit about you know your experiences, you know on behalf of the United States a year ago you know based on this need for face masks and face shields and ventilator parts and test tubes, tell me what you experienced there too.

Kurfess: Sure, well Jamie, I think that it was a scary time, it was also a very exciting time because you looked at it and it's exactly what Scott said is we've got some of the solutions to these things. So for example, and again as Scott said, people were printing with their small 3D printers personal protective equipment face space shield holders and so forth, but what we were looking at is we were using our hybrid system, so we were putting metal down and then we were machining that metal so that we could turn that into molds and so for injection molding so we could start to make these types of components. And even on the materials, we turned our carbon fiber technology facility which produces about 25 tons of carbon fiber material a year into an N95 production facility and really we weren't super interested. This is what I mentioned last time, we weren't super interested in producing it ourselves. I mean 25 tons sounds a lot you know it's not like a big number but the reality is not very big when you compare to some of our partners and what they make. So we work closely with Cummins, for example, and you know they're doing engines right, but all engines have filters on them right so then they connected us with their filter producer. We said okay, here's how you can convert your line into using N95 and produce those N95 that material and then get it down to a company, I believe it's down in Florida that's actually making the mask and, by the way, that also created jobs as well so I mean it worked all the way around. The other thing that was really interesting is, and you know this because you and I are on the phone all the time and texting and sending email back and forth and hey, can you get this design and it you know part of it's not good enough just to make the mold but you got to drop it in the machine, how does it fit into the machine, and you have different machines to fit in there and so forth. So this whole digital connection where we can basically say hey, as opposed to me calling Jamie and then you know saying hey Scott, this is what we need to hook into our injection molder and so forth, if all of that could happen digitally, electronically, and securely, all of a sudden you have a super high-speed capability. So yes, we were successful but we also uncovered I think a lot of weaknesses that we're working to address which is a very exciting thing and a lot of those things that we can just we're going to nail it to the wall in the next few years, I'll tell you that it's exciting.

Goettler: It is exciting, yeah Scott, please add.

Smith: It was a really exciting time to be at Oak Ridge and we at Oak Ridge National Lab we certainly made a difference. We had the people and the tools to really help in this regard. Those techniques, those things that Tom discussed, need a much wider deployment.

Kurfess: So Scott said it was an exciting time to be at Oak Ridge no doubt. I mean man oh man, we were running flat out but I gotta say it was an exciting time to be a manufacturer. I just watched some of our partners and they were into they're like we are saving people, they interacted with hospitals and with you know with the Tennessee version of FEMA or the Georgia version of FEMA, where these doctors are just saying thank you so much for getting us this equipment and this material and so forth. I mean it was you know you just can't beat the excitement and the feeling of accomplishment. I know it was a tough time, those are dark times, but the accomplishments and the way that the community came together and just delivered was outstanding.

Goettler: Yeah, you gentlemen you know we had somewhat of a front row seat as you mentioned Tom, to work alongside you and witness the power of technology in the minds in the human strive to meet this demand. As concerning as it was and certainly we were proud to be part of it but it was more the outcomes and you said it yourself, not only the associates at Oak Ridge but your partners that you all work with there, they all chipped in from all different types of market segments to help support what was necessary and it was a beautiful thing to have seen and you guys should be proud and we're certainly proud for a very small part that MSC played in it. Scott, I'll come back to you on this one and that's to say you know what can we use from the pandemic you know that we learned? We learned that we were overdependent but now there's this notion in this want nationwide to domesticate the supply chain, to become more independent and in order to do that we've got to become more competitive. What are some of the things that either additionally that we learned or that you're starting to see happen across the United States that puts us in a position where that feeling never happens again?

Smith: Well I think certainly Tom pointed out one of the things that's really right you know, the report to 13806 called out the skills gap as well. And you know we spent a generation telling people that manufacturing was not a good career choice and then we're surprised when we need it and there's not a pipeline of people ready to fill all of those manufacturing jobs and there are lots of manufacturing jobs going unfilled. However, I'm really hopeful about it because I think there's a new generation of workforce that's coming up who are very technically savvy. They use the data to make better decisions. It's not the kind of manual labor that it used to be at one time. It's a knowledge business and so I think spending a lot of effort in that you know I want to be careful when I say workforce development because a lot of people when they hear workforce development they see that as machine operators. Now that's really important, and those are good jobs, and I mean more than that I mean the whole ecosystem all the way from people who don't have high school diplomas to the designers of new equipment and the writers of new software and the entrepreneurs who are going to start the new companies and we need to support all of that and I think that became clear during the pandemic. I mean we knew it before, it was certainly called out in the report, and I think it was pointed out to us quite clearly during the pandemic.

Goettler: By all means. Dr. Kurfess, anything you would add to what Scott shared there?

Kurfess: Yeah, I mean I think that the good Dr. Smith is right on the money and I'll take it a little bit of a step further because it is true that yeah, we need to really leverage the technology that's out there and move things forward. And so that doesn't mean a machine operator or you know hey, this is your father's or grandfather's machine tool or CNC and so forth. It's a whole different era and I mean just as an example, my mother, she's 82 years old. Maybe I shouldn't have given her age away on the podcast. Hopefully she's not listening right? She tends to listen to a lot of these things.

Goettler: I have a feeling she will listen but go ahead.

Kurfess: No, I'm gonna be in trouble that's okay. But look, she's 82 years old. If she's going to go out to lunch right, what does she do? She picks up her smartphone, brings up the weather app and that'll tell her whether she needs to bring an umbrella or not and it'll even project out hey, here's what it's going to be like for the next few hours. She is accessing a constellation of newest satellites that are transmitting down terabytes of data that are being integrated with ground doppler radar terabytes of data, running the latest generation of weather models on super computers. My 82-year-old mother is doing this right, and so this is exactly where manufacturing is doing. We're going to put that type of capability at the fingertips of you know the operator. I mean almost we need a new word, it's not going to be operator anymore it's, I don't know what the right terminology is, but they're going to be doing amazing things with the technology and they're going to be comfortable with it which is very exciting and that's where we're going.

Goettler: Yeah, I can see it potentially becoming productivity consultants more than operators. There's so many opportunities using industry 4.0 endeavors or otherwise to improve businesses and everybody take their part so you know. Once again gentlemen, I can't thank you enough. This was a really you know I expect every one of our episodes, especially the ones you guys participate in, to be  so helpful and so enlightening for the viewers but you know where Scott started to talk about and Tommy took off on a little bit, is the manufacturing skills gap and as we move to our follow-up episode in the last of our first three with you guys, looking forward to talking about the skills gap. You know, how do you feel where we are today, are we making improvements, are we upskilling existing workers, are we introducing manufacturing, and what the reality is of manufacturing today to a new generation and what about productivity improvements in areas where maybe there aren't enough skilled workers or productivity improvements thriving out there. So, as we move away from this particular segment, gentlemen once again I want to thank you and I want to thank the viewers for watching MSC's Tooling Up and we'll see you on our next episode.

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