A suburban company turned on a dime during the coronavirus pandemic to stay in business.
Algonquin-based Young Innovations manufactures dental "consumables." But when COVID hit and dental work was deemed non-essential, 80 workers were furloughed at the company's Microbrush plant near Milwaukee, CEO Dave Sproat said.
Young Innovations' production line.Young Innovations
As testing swabs became scarce nationally, a company employee made the observation, "This looks an awful like what we already make," Sproat said.
So, Young Innovations went that way, with help from Cleveland Clinic.
"They helped us with the specs to make sure we were building this to the gold standard," Sproat said.
Young Innovations was already familiar with the process that puts hair-like flocking on the instruments that captures samples from peoples' nasal passages. The swabs are packaged in the Chicago area and then sterilized in Salt Lake City and Atlanta.
The company's Microbrush plant recently produced it 20 millionth swab but still has 12 million swabs sitting on shelves.
Sproat said the company is reaching out to hospitals and others to make inroads into the business.
"The team really feels really good being a part of a solution to what we hope to be a once-in-a lifetime pandemic," he said.
Medical swab production process.Young Innovations
