Despite the bumpy COVID-19 ride, metal fabricators endure

In early March, Pennsylvania fabricator Laserfab was running full-out. Then came COVID-19, and within an extraordinarily short period, everything changed. Image provided

In early March Laserfab, a Lebanon, Pa.-based job shop with 22 employees, was running full-out, multiple shifts, with many workers getting plenty of overtime. A few weeks later, everything changed.

“When it all hit, everyone had questions. There was so much uncertainty as to how to proceed. And the guidance coming from the state government changed daily.” So said Dain Zimmerman, business development manager, who added, “Uncertainty sums it up, really.”

Like many metal fabricators, Laserfab has been riding the COVID-19 roller coaster for the past several weeks. By the second week of April, though, Laserfab’s business showed signs of stabilizing. Requests for quotes returned, and as of this writing, employees were busy serving critical supply chains. In early April its lasers were cutting parts destined for hospital beds. “That order was huge for us,” Zimmerman said. “We’re cutting the same day we’re receiving material.”

It’s not business as usual, of course. Revenue has fallen sharply over the past several weeks, a reflection of stark drops in manufacturing activity in certain sectors. But the world needs hospital beds, and Laserfab is playing a role in that effort. It’s also fabricating stainless steel parts designed to hold test tubes in medical labs, something else the world needs now more than ever. And at least for now, more orders keep coming from various medical and food-distribution clients.

Laserfab’s story of the past several weeks might sound familiar for many shop owners and managers. Starting in late March, as shelter-in-place orders went into effect for an expanding number of Pennsylvania counties, with a statewide order following shortly thereafter, the scramble began. Laserfab managers told all employees to go home.

“We called every employee that night,” Zimmerman recalled, “all 22 of them. Just a few essential staff came into wind everything down.”

Then later the next day, new guidance came out. Because Laserfab was part of critical supply chains, it was allowed to stay open. By Monday the shop was busy preparing orders for customers who needed parts immediately.

“Then for a few days, the orders dried up. Customers shut down; many did so voluntarily,” Zimmerman said. “Some were big OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. Then once they received better guidance or gained a better understanding, they brought back limited staff.”

The company holds regular standup meetings, and, of course, anyone who feels ill is being asked to stay home, even if it’s just a sore throat. One employee with a sore throat stayed home for a week before getting the all-clear from his doctor and returning to work. “We’re not playing around with this,” Zimmerman said.

Most agree the economy now is in a recession, a unique one in modern times. On Wednesday Kai Ryssdal, host of the radio show Marketplace, spoke with Lisa Goldenberg, president of the Delaware Steel Co. of Pennsylvania, a metal service center based out of Fort Washington, Pa., and a member of the Association of Steel Distributors. Delaware Steel has customers across the U.S., which gives Goldenberg a front-row seat to just how varied the metal fabrication economy is just now. In some places, demand has slowed to a trickle. Some plants have shut their doors temporarily. Other places are running full-out, fulfilling the needs of essential industries. In some states—like Arkansas, which at this writing has no shelter-in-place order—it’s pretty much business as usual, at least in some areas in the state.

“It’s not a uniform experience,” she said. “It’s different from state to state, county to county, and industry to industry.” She added that such varied responses from local governments—along with the fact that the virus has been far worse in certain areas and infection rates are peaking at different rates—have made the ride into the recession a bumpy one.

On Thursday Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that recovery will be robust once the pandemic is contained. Even so, Goldenberg expects the ride out of this recession to be just as bumpy as the ride was heading into it. “I think the recovery is going to be just as bumpy and uncertain,” she told Marketplace. “We’ll come up with a protocol on how to start again [and ramp up production during the recovery], hopefully soon. But I think the new reality will be an up-down-up-down experience.”

Back at Laserfab, the new normal includes working from home for those who can, making time for significant shop cleaning, removing break room chairs to prevent people from congregating close together, and ensuring everyone can keep a safe distance while doing their jobs.

Before the crisis the company already had a healthy stock of gloves and masks. “We made sure we have enough,” Zimmerman said, “but after that, we donated the rest of our masks to an employee who has a relative working at a retirement community that was desperate for them … We just wanted to help.”

In wanting to help, Zimmerman has a lot of company, and thank goodness. Such altruism will help pull us all through. After all, what else do we have but each other? Chaotic times like these somehow lead to clarity about the importance of offering a helping hand (at a distance) through all the bumps, fits, and starts that are sure to follow.