Trabon Group, A KC Producer Of Restaurant Menus, Begins Making Face Shields During Pandemic
Trabon Group, a Kansas City printing company and mass producer of restaurant menus, has recently made a change in their business due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Soon after the epidemic began to spread in the United States, The Trabon team recognized that their paper-cutting processes could work for manufacturing protective face shields.
“We just kind of stumbled into it and day-to-day just tried to throw it all at this problem that we were hearing about in the news, which was the lack of medical supplies around the country,” said Trabon, vice president of the company. “We didn’t really know how to get it done, but we threw our team at solving the problem of ‘How do you create a supply chain overnight for something that we don’t do?’”
After the first week of production, the firm was manufacturing as USA Shields. They were able to locate a number of local medical centers interested in their products. “We can now produce about 7,000 to 8,000 units per day and we’re working six days a week,” Trabon said. “With our shifts, we’re able to employ about 50 to 60 people each day and if they’re producing 8,000 a day, that’s 45,000-plus shields each week that we’re able to produce.” Their goal is to continue to produce face shields for as long as necessary until they see more stabilization in the restaurant industry. The operation is expected to continue for as long as possible in the current competitive climate and outsourcing of labor.