Bellingen-based manufacturing and design company Planet Lighting remains in full production mode despite the damage COVID-19 is causing in many sectors of the economy.
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"We're feeling blessed that we're in a couple of industries - health and food - that are still busy, and so we continue to work," said Adam Kornhauser, who manages the medical division.
The company's 50 employees are either safely dispersed within the North Bellingen factory making high-quality niche lighting products, or working from home if that's feasible.
"There's a natural separation based on the size of the machines," Adam said. "We have assembly tables where people are putting together componentry and they need three or four metres to do their work. So they aren't right next to each other in the first place.
"Wherever people have workstations, we evenly distribute them across the facility. And people like me who have an office are working from home."
They've also staggered work hours across seven days so some employees have their weekend mid-week, scheduled maintenance tasks for evening when it's quieter, directed that people sit apart during meal breaks and of course they've ramped up the sanitation measures.
Adam agreed the changes impose a certain amount of overhead in terms of time and effort, but said it was unavoidable.
"If we have to modify some of our behaviours, that's what we need to do. And everyone has adjusted very quickly, because I think they all feel strongly that they want to stay employed and not put the business at risk."
Of Planet Lighting's three divisions - medical, aquaculture and architectural - only the latter has been impacted by the economic downturn.
The medical division has recently supplied specialised lights for the fast-tracked hospital being built at Macksville and have a long list of orders in the pipeline for other hospitals around Australia.
"There's a whole range of them, from the smaller examination lights, the kind you might see at your local doctor's, to those for an emergency department or intensive care unit, right through into surgical lights," Adam said.
Planet Lighting's aquacultural division is also doing well, because it's tied to another essential enterprise - food production.
"We supply submersible lights to the salmon farming industry in Tasmania, Canada, Chile, Norway and New Zealand," Adam said. "The government is making sure that air freight food delivery services are happening so that's allowed those businesses to continue."
The architectural division that does public space lighting has seen a bit of a dip in demand, but infrastructure projects involving tunnels and bridges are still moving ahead so there's activity in that area too.
"Having three divisions of our business all performing, we're optimistic that we'll be able to continue doing what we've done for a hundred years," Adam said.
"As a family business at heart with a lot of history behind it, Planet Lighting has seen and been through a lot, and some of our proudest moments have been supporting people - getting them through the hard times."