Guelph's ONYX Hose & Tube Inc. is responding to a province-wide need for medical equipment by halting the production of other products and ramping up production for hoses to be used with ventilators.
The company — which produces hoses and tubes for a variety of sectors such as industrial, agricultural, medical, food and custom products among more — says it has seen a huge spike in demand for its medical hoses in recent weeks and that responding to that demand is essential.
“Our focus is medical. We’ve been running medical now for probably four days straight,” said president Renata Sergejew, adding that all the other industries are waiting in line for their products.
“There’s a lot of heat right on us to do medical and we’ve told all our customers that are other than medical, that they’re going to have to take a back seat,” said Sergejew.
Typically, the company says it manufactures 10,000 to 20,000 feet of tube to medical industries per month. Each tube that is used with a ventilator is approximately 1.5m long.
Last week, within four days, the company responded to demand and produced over 500,000 ft — a 2,400 per cent increase from its monthly average — and had employees working around the clock.
“We work five days, 24 hours a day,” said Sergejew.
Sergejew said their clients have been very understanding after Onyx Hose put a pause on many products to focus on the urgent demand for hoses.
She said it wasn’t until COVID-19 hit that the company realized how many industries they are providing to are essential services such as hardware stores and agriculture.
“If something blows up in your house, you need to fix the tube or get the fitting. So hardware is quite important to keep a household running and we sell to that industry as well,” said Sergejew.
“We’re making a lot of agricultural products as well which shortly is going to be planting seeds. We only get one spring!”
Sergejew said it becomes a problem when the company is not seen as essential although it is providing the same kind of essential equipment that large corporations are.
She said ensuring safety for the company’s employees can sometimes become a challenge when federal guidelines are instructing workers to stay home to be safe.
“But then we’re trying to tell them ‘you’re an essential service’ so we need to run because if we don’t run, our hoses aren’t going to get on the ventilators and people are going to die,” said Sergejew.
“It’s a crazy situation as a management team to try to keep people motivated and think about what they’re doing and focusing on what they’re doing and how important it is.”
The company increased its safety precautions such as implementing a cleaning schedule after every shift so all surfaces are sanitized, asking the workers to implement self-isolation after work, and probating any outsider to enter the premises.
“If we stay home, then hospitals aren’t going to get their product, and there’s a lot of businesses like us all around,” said Sergejew adding that her employees also need a full paycheck.
Sergejew said they have also seen support from their suppliers.
“It’s been an anomaly of support,” said Sergejew.
