Associations Helping Members During Pandemic

MRO Magazine reached out to several industry associations to find out how COVID-19 is impacting their industries and members. As well as asking them how they are helping their members cope with the pandemic.

Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA)
Ann Arnott, CEO, PTDA said “PTDA’s members ensure companies manufacturing the equipment and resources to stem the spread COVID-19 stay up and running. As distributors and manufacturers of motors, bearings, conveyors and other power transmission/motion control components, our members keep industry moving. The biggest impact that we’ve heard from member companies is balancing the support and protection of their employees with meeting the needs of these essential manufacturers who are their customers. As the industry’s leading association, PTDA is providing members with key COVID-19 business-related information and also a forum to share and help one another in solving challenges.”

Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium (EMC)
JP Giroux, President, EMC said “We are monitoring industry needs, questions and working on manufacturing alliances for solutions. All EMC staff and our online infrastructure are at manufacturers disposal and in place should they require access to digital resources, virtual, training or other support during this time. Our Member Needs Help (MHH) services is now available to all manufacturers and community partners to share practical tools and information developed by manufacturers and for manufacturers to use and implement.”

Canadian Tooling and Machining Association (CTMA)
Robert Cattle, Executive Director, CTMA said “There is so much going on at this moment in time, and things change on a daily/hourly basis so here is a quick synopsis.

“We are attending conference calls/meetings set up by the Provincial Government, as well as conference calls with the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition and relaying all information to our members through weekly or bi-weekly emails. We have encouraged all of our members to look into manufacturing components that are in need during this time of crisis as well as sent them pertinent links to government websites to get information they need.

“We have approached our board and asked them to give us feedback on what procedures they have put in place, which we then condensed and sent to all of our members for them to see. We are all working from home and cancelled the Windsor Chapter tour of Dajcor Aluminum, I have cancelled all of my monitoring visits for the Career Ready with CTMA program and we are looking into the possibility of postponing our annual golf tournament.”

Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE)
Jim Arner, Chair, Toronto Section, STLE said “At our section level we followed the advice of the local government and our STLE parent. We had a planned tribology workshop in May but we have postponed that until later this autumn. Other than the initial planning by our section there was no significant impact on others.

“At the international level the STLE has postponed the 75th Annual Meeting that was scheduled for May. This international conference attracts close to 2000 people worldwide and is a key activity of the organization. Plans were in place for a special anniversary celebration this year. With the postponement of this meeting there is a significant impact to the organization and to the members, attendees, speakers, exhibitors and advertisers.”

PEMAC Asset Management Association of Canada
Cindy Snedden, Executive Director, PEMAC said “PEMAC is a organization whose members are the professionals responsible for maintenance management, reliability management and organization-level asset management of the civil and mechanical infrastructure that keeps things working. I have had the opportunity to hear from a few of them, and last week was about determining what portion of each organization’s services are essential.

“When the answer is, ‘Yes, this service is essential’ (water and wastewater, food production, fuel delivery, health care facilities management), the challenge has been how to deliver services and keep frontline workers and their families safe. It was a particularly challenging to do with kids coming home from school and alternate child care arrangements not in place. Desk workers were shifting to working from home, and plant staff were carefully working out safety measures that would make it possible to keep things running with minimum staff.

“When the answer is, ‘this service is not essential (right now)’ the challenge was whether and how to idle with minimum impact on both equipment and staff, hoping to bring teams back together to power up when the situation improves.  Services we may have considered essential, find themselves in this situation, airports being one example.

“It’s clear that we need a coordinated effort right now. What is also clear is that external circumstances are calling into question all former assumptions about the value that the organization that we serve produces. In some cases, it has been possible to pivot. We have members, who work in distilleries, who are retooling their production lines to produce sanitizer.”

As we speak with other industry associations, we will continue to add their comments to this article.