LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Businesses near the UPS plane crash site are having to get creative to meet demand while their workplaces remain shut down to traffic. Quantum Ink Company is one such business, transforming a family’s hangout space into their temporary headquarters.
Staff at Quantum Ink Company are accustomed to manufacturing about 50,000 pounds of water-based printing inks a day. That extensive operation is now surprisingly happening in a home basement in Shepherdsville.
“We’re essentially running the business from a pool table and using massive amounts of communication to bypass what we’re lacking from a technology standpoint,” Adam Bland, president and CEO of Quantum Ink Company, told WAVE News.
Their usual workspace is only a quarter mile away from the UPS plane crash site, making it inaccessible. On Saturday, local authorities granted them a brief window to enter their business. Bland said they maximized that hour and a half.
“We pretty much gutted our entire laboratory and threw it in the back of two Equinoxes,” he explained. “And then we were able to extract some manufacturing equipment that was put on a truck and immediately left on its way to Houston, Texas to be able to manufacture it there.”
This swift action led to the creation of their current manufacturing basement setup. Bland candidly admits, “We’ve tried to manage an appropriate amount of chaos.”
This “chaos” means Quantum Ink is operating at approximately 60 percent capacity, and Bland acknowledges it’s a race to catch up.
“I would say that we’re solid three days behind right now, probably about 200,000 pounds behind right now in manufacturing,” he stated.
For now, the team is taking it day by day, slowly fulfilling orders, and eagerly anticipating the return to their permanent location on Melton Avenue.
“It will be sustained long term if it has to,” he added. “It’s not ideal. It’s costing us a literal fortune in time, effort, tax, stress, dollars and we’re pulling every favor card that we can, but honestly, the machine that is the way we’re functioning now is actually improving daily, by the minute.”
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