Miles of safety tape roll out of Heskins
Need to put treads on the foot controls of your zero-turn tractors, but it's a not a standard shape so you can't just go to the store to get it?
Does your line of skateboards require some safety tread on top so clumsy riders won't slip off?
Are you worried customers could get injured on your wet, slippery stairs?
The answer could be hidden behind big bay doors in a plain-looking warehouse-type building in East Butler.
The employees of Heskins LLC, a company that turns out dozens of products that could save a life, or at least a lawsuit, turn out miles of anti-slip and non-slip tape products every single day. Much of it is cut and packaged by hand.
“(We make) self-adhesive tapes, mainly safety products,” Mat Farnworth, the vice president of the company, said in a strong British accent. “So, lots of different types of self-adhesive products: anti-slip tapes, reflective tapes, wide tapes, galvanic anti-corrosion barrier tapes, specialized tapes used in different industries.”It's a surprisingly hands-on process. Matthew Walowen carefully placed a large steel rule die — a sort of sharp metal pattern laid out on a wood base — on top of a 46-inch-wide tread roll about 300 feet long that was rolled out onto the platform of a flatbed die-cutting machine.Walowen pressed a button and a large press came down and applied pressure to the die.Next, two treads were cut out. Walowen placed the treads on a work table until there were 50 in a stack.He then moved that stack to a pallet where there would soon be 2,000 treads to complete the order. Farnworth said that he's cut out at least 10,000 treads for different companies. Fortunately, the machine does the counting.Don't need treads in this shape, size or color? There are hundreds of dies hung neatly on a rack placed by a side wall. Heskins can also accommodate custom sizes and shapes.Farther down the line, three workers were cutting and packaging two-inch wide black abrasive safety tape, the kind that comes in a bright package.
Thomas Kilcoin fed a large, wide roll of anti-slip material through a roller system that crush-cut the material into several smaller strips of the desired length, then rolled those strips onto a cardboard core.When the wide roll ran out, he put another roll on, all without missing a second of production time.After Joanhes “Junior” Newton took the cut rolls off the machine, another person used clear tape to secure the end, and Tina Buchanan put the rolls into its packaging.The final step was to put the packaged tape into a shipping carton. Each order is packaged differently, depending on what the customer wants.“It's down to the nature of the product and how they want the product to be packaged out,” Farnworth said. “In this instance, the customer wants the product to be exposed so you can see and feel the material when it's on the shelf. It could be quite easily shrink-wrapped or heat sealed without the use of tape in an automated process, but for this, it's a specific requirement.”Twenty-two thousand packaged rolls of tape later, the job will be completed.The material, which eventually will be made into tape, is backed by a nonstick paper that you peel off when you apply it and is manufactured in Europe, Farnworth said.It's shipped to East Butler and then cut to order, packaged and shipped. It comes in abrasive, anti-slip, which feels like sandpaper; and non-abrasive, bare-skin friendly. In addition, the tape is not just for industrial application. It can also be used in the home.“You might put it on your staircase, your porch steps, your pool steps,” Farnworth said. “We offer a varied range.”This is not all they make at Heskins, however.Stored in plain brown cardboard boxes that sit somewhere on tall industrial shelves is Heskins' other line, the Cenura silicone range. It looks like gel, is totally sticky and is chemically inert. The company makes it into items such as placemats and mug mats for people who might need a little more stability in the items they use every day.“It will regain its stick over and over again once it's cleaned,” Farnworth said. “If anyone has any tremors or grip impairments, you can put (the placemat) onto a tray, stick your bowl down on it and your bowl's not going to tip off. It's going to stay stuck in place.”It's also good for campers, RVs and boats.
As with many other industries, Farnworth is looking for administration and shop floor workers. He understands the many reasons there is a shortage of workers, but he's hoping for the best.“There's just a mass of jobs out there at the moment,” he said.
