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Contingency Planning

The pandemic has illustrated the importance of peer relationships and group membership when faced with unforeseen circumstances.

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Steve Katz, Contributing Editor04.13.21

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light that we as a society – and as an industry – should “expect the unexpected.” With hindsight being 2020 (pun intended!), so many businesses and individuals have or shoud have benefited from having a contingency plan in place.

In the case of the pandemic, a number of situations arose. At some manufacturing operations, production had to temporarily halt due to staff either becoming sick with the virus or unable to come to work due to exposure. Plus, many people have had to stay home to take care of family members who were ill or need to look after children who could not attend school due to closures. While those in the print industry were fortunate to have their work deemed “essential,” the virus’ impact was far-reaching and unavoidable.

Nimble converters were wise to quickly establish protocols to keep workers safe and operations up-and-running. This included downsizing shifts to skeleton crews while having those that could work from home do so. Of course, in a label printing facility, machines need to be operated by people – in person – so for a production staff,