North Kent News

After Gov. Gretchen Whitmer closed all nonessential businesses until mid-April due to the novel coronavirus, businesses have been either working to adapt or temporarily shutting down. Whitmer's executive order shut down all businesses except critical services.

Companies that manufacture the materials needed for medical supply chains or those that involve transportation, communications, energy, chemical manufacturing, food and agriculture, water and wastewater treatment, the operation of dams, defense and emergency services all must continue to maintain their continuity, according to the Daily News.

"Throughout every day, we are learning more about what companies in our area are doing to adjust to the current situation, including shifting staffing needs, production processes and more," Travis Alden, the director of business development for The Right Place told the Daily News. "One requirement of the executive order to keep in mind is that essential infrastructure companies can remain open but should do so with the minimum staffing required to maintain production/service, while also implementing prevention measures to lessen the spread of COVID-19."

Alden told the news agency that businesses had to get creative and be resilient and innovative. He said that even though the closures would be major, Michigan would overcome those issues.

Mark Kollar, human resources manager for Dicastal North America, told the Daily News that Dicastal is only allowing a small number of employees on site. When Whitmer made the announcement, Dicastal shut down all production.

Kollar told the Daily News that the shutdown affected everybody and was difficult, given that they were only given 11 to 12 hours to shut down and the company typically runs 24 hours a day.

"I think every company in this area has really done a good job of putting employee welfare and health in front of profitability and production," Kollar told the news agency. "I think that’s really important. It’s important to have people stay home. We want to nip this virus in the bud as much as possible so that we can bring our employees back while also keeping them safe."

Crandall Office Furniture began devoting about half of its workforce to sewing reusable face masks to donate to hospitals and medical centers, the news agency reported. Office Vice President David Crandall said that the company began setting those efforts into motion well before the executive order was announced.

"We came into work on Monday not knowing what was coming,” Crandall told the Daily News. “We already started the legwork of making those masks and putting the templates in place. We were obviously a little concerned about how the order was going to affect our business, short-term and long-term, but we decided to devote about half of our workforce to making masks, while the other half is continuing to produce furniture and remanufacturing chairs to support us.”