Cummins Inc. plans to produce disposable masks for all of its employees across much of the world, including Indiana, as part of the company’s efforts to update its safety measures as new evidence emerges about how the coronavirus spreads.
The company, which employs more than 60,000 people globally and is headquartered in Columbus, plans to start distributing the masks to employees on Aug. 1. Company officials said they plan to produce enough masks for every employee to receive at least two during each shift.
The masks will include the company’s filtration media and be produced at three sites around the world, including at the Columbus Engine Plant, 500 Central Ave., said Angel Franklin, executive director of employee wellness, compensation and benefits at Cummins.
Cummins has been requiring the use of face masks by employees for at least two months, but with an increasing number of health experts agreeing that wearing masks or other face coverings can reduce the risk of spreading the virus. The company said it is expanding its mask guidance so that all employees “have a consistent level of protection.”
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“We’ve found that we have seen a lot of success in our multiple-layered approach,” said Dr. Bob Chestnut, medical director of Cummins LiveWell Center. “Part of that has been that the face coverings have been used, and we’re moving in a direction where we’ll be able to produce some face coverings that will actually have some of the Cummins filtering media as part of their construction that we’ll be able to provide to employees to both contain any respiratory droplets as well as prevent inhalation of droplets from others.”
Layers of safety
Many companies around the world, including Cummins, have been scrambling to adjust operations to keep workers safe and prevent facilities from becoming hotspots for the virus.
Coronavirus outbreaks have occurred in workplaces in Indiana, including at a Farbest Foods in Dubois County in which at least 100 workers tested positive for the virus and a Tyson pork-processing plant in Logansport, which was closed for nearly two weeks and tests confirmed COVID-19 infections among nearly 900 of the plant’s 2,200 employees, according to The Associated Press.
Cummins officials said the company is taking what they call a “multiple-layered approach” to reduce the chances of spreading the virus.
The company has yet to see any spikes in COVID-19 cases among employees and “very few cases” of people contracting the virus at a Cummins facility since many of the employees were called back to work after the company reopened its southern Indiana manufacturing plants, Franklin said.
“When people do tell us they’ve tested positive, it’s nine times out of 10 — even higher than that, actually — it’s likely that it happened in their personal community and not at work,” Franklin said.
The initial layer involves attempting to keep sick employees out of the workplace through self-reporting as well as through site entry screening, Chestnut said.
Once in the workplace, the company has taken several additional measures to reduce the chance of spreading the virus, including reducing the number of people at Cummins facilities when possible, redesigning facility layouts, reconfiguring entrances and exits, increasing cleaning and disinfecting protocols, ensuring social distancing is practiced among employees and complying with government and health authority guidelines.
Additionally, the company has installed plexiglass in places where people have to be close together, work stations have been redesigned and repositioned so that people are spaced further apart and start times for employees have been staggered so people don’t arrive at same time, Chestnut said.
“We have not seen any spikes in cases and that is part of what we’ve taken as validation that the layers of safety we’re using are effective,” Chestnut said.
Response center
If an employee indicates that they may have been exposed to the virus or has coronavirus-like symptoms during the on-site screening, they are instructed to go home and self-isolate.
Then, the Cummins Response Center, which is staffed by medical professionals from the Cummins LiveWell Center, helps coordinate testing for the employee and determine when it is safe for the employee to return to work.
The response center also does contact tracing, and people who have been in close contact with the employee are screened.
“We continue to pay their wages and help them to get testing coordinated,” Franklin said. “We also help them get cleared back to work and make sure all their needs are met. I think this is one of the things that we’re doing that has really made a difference for our employees, because if they’ve got symptoms, they’re not worried about losing income, they’re not worried about taking time away. I think it has kept our sites really safe.”
Cummins officials have shared their experiences and “playbook” on how to open and operate safely with the communities in which they operate, including Columbus and the COVID-19 Community Task Force, said Jim Schacht, executive director of community relations and corporate responsibility at Cummins.
The task force, which was formed in February, includes representatives from Columbus Regional Health, the city of Columbus mayor’s office, Bartholomew County Health Department, Bartholomew County Emergency Management, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. and Cummins.
“We’ve made available all the safe workplace practices and protocols and our playbook to others in the community who are grappling with the same things,” Schacht said.
