Dear Manufacturers and Manufacturing Community,

I want to thank the many people and companies from our manufacturing community who, despite this troubling economic time, have generously offered to support our frontline workers in producing the much-needed PPE and have kept producing essential products for the general population.

Because of the community’s quick response, contributions, and your willingness to help during this time, our community is getting fresh attention. In this renewed focus on the manufacturing sector and during this unprecedented pause of manufacturing operations, we think the best way for your business to continue to help us defeat the effects of the pandemic crisis is to focus on readying your facility to restart and develop your capabilities to operate in changing times. 

The workforce and economic challenges in the way are real and require thoughtful high road recovery preparedness. Below is a suggested restart checklist:

•      Assess and implement a safe workplace environment
•      Plan employee safe workplace protocol training
•      Ensure technology resilience and cybersecurity
•      Obtain finance assistance, recovery loans, and grants
•      Update your business disaster preparedness
•      Develop supply chain contingency plans
•      Adjust plant layout
•      Retool machinery, methods, workforce approaches
•      Consider automation solutions
•      Prepare to onboard and upskill new and returning employees quickly

Impact Washington’s manufacturing experts bring decades of experience from companies large and small. We’ve worked as floor managers, product engineers, project managers, executives, researchers, materials scientists, and more. Our team and resource partners are available to offer no-cost guidance on your recovery preparedness. We will foster a quick and thought-out actionable plan to ensure a smooth restarting of your business as soon as possible. 

During this time, we remain committed to our mission of ensuring a healthy, vibrant, and capable manufacturing community in every corner of Washington State.  

Contact us directly via our website or email, and let's begin a discussion on restarting your facility today!

Deloit R. Wolfe, Jr.
President & Center Director
Impact Washington