Like virtually every other manufacturing business in our country, the rules for doing business continue to change and so we adapt and change right along with them. The one thing that never wavers is our commitment to the safety and well-being of our employee-owners. For that reason, we have greatly restricted visitors in our facilities, virtually eliminated business travel, and even limit travel between our own buildings. We continue to monitor and adhere to best practices shared by the CDC and the Minnesota State Health Department. This included cleaning equipment at the start and end of every shift, wearing masks, closed breakrooms, and of course social distancing. This means lots and lots of virtual Teams meetings!
During this “new normal”, we have noticed a couple of interesting trends. First, the overall level of business activity is way up from last quarter. This includes quoting activity and increased demand for a wide variety of existing projects. In fact, many of these requests are for shorter than typical lead times due to unforeseen spikes in demand. We have handled plenty of drop-in orders to accommodate our customers and are pleased to see many of their businesses bouncing back strong. Second, we have discussed several projects from some long-time customers that are looking to source items back in the U.S. that are currently being produced overseas. Covid-19 created significant disruptions in the supply chain, and so sourcing to reliable and quality minded companies in this country is becoming more important than ever before. For these reasons, Lou-Rich is hiring several manufacturing and engineering positions in order to meet our customer’s needs.
2020 has certainly reminded us that there is no predicting the future, but right now things continue to look up and we are expecting to finish the year strong.
