Customer Success Story: Menasha Corporation

Here at CavCom, we love to talk about our solutions and how they help our customers. And from time to time, we’re able to share some of those stories here on our blog. Today, we’re sharing the story of how CavCom solutions support communication and hearing conservation at Menasha Corporation. 

Meet Menasha 

Menasha Corporation is a privately held company specializing in the design and production of corrugated packaging solutions. A corrugator is a steam-powered machine. It’s loud, and it puts off a lot of heat. For instance, if it’s 80 degrees outside, the corrugator crew is working in temperatures around 120 degrees. 

We spoke with Brian, a Shift Coordinator who’s been with Menasha for 20 years, “When I started here we had no CavCom, no communication besides PA speakers and a mic that we had to speak into. We wore these big, heavy headsets along with foam earplugs. The problem was, you had to be able to hear the PA, so if you were on the other side of the machines, you were not going to hear what was being called out.” 

Being unable to communicate effectively made this more difficult than it needed to be for the employees working in the high noise environment. On their production floor, and throughout their entire company, Menasha prioritizes safety, quality and production. But with their PA system communications, they weren’t equipping employees to support those priorities. 

Enter CavCom

Menasha employees needed to communicate in a high noise environment. This meant they needed something to provide hearing protection and something to enable communication. Here at CavCom, both of those needs are met by Talk Through Your Ears® (TTYE). TTYE are uniquely engineered earpieces that combine an in-ear microphone and speakers within a hearing protector. They work with any suit, any respirator, and any radio. And they were exactly what Menasha’s corrugator crew needed. 

Each member of the crew was molded for custom earsets and provided a pair of TTYE. These sets, each engraved with their employees’ name, provided each worker with hearing protection, comfort and most importantly, the ability to communicate in high noise. Menasha’s CavCom solution did what it was supposed to do. Here’s a look at how Talk Through Your Ears® supported Menasha’s top three priorities: safety, quality and production. 

Safety

“We just had our hearing tests back in October, and mine came out awesome. It just helps to have a good seal in your ear and wear your hearing protection. Your hearing is the one thing you’ll never get back.”

In addition to supporting Menasha’s hearing conservation program, TTYE provided cleanliness, too. “With the foamies, you end up with wrappers all over the place. Since we have the custom fits, we don’t have garbage lying around. And since we’re an BRC company that deals with food and medical-grade boxes, I bet not having litter all over the place helps us keep our AA rating.” 

Quality

“You know, being able to communicate on the floor also helps to empower your own employees. They might run into a problem while I’m 400 feet away. With these earsets, they’re able to describe what’s going on and get help from me no matter where I’m at. Since I can hear what’s going on and be heard at all times, we can solve issues without having to shut down the machine and troubleshoot. And that machine does not like to stop and start. It works best if you can just keep it running the whole time.” 

Production

“We make some items that cost a high dollar. It’s fast-paced, important work. And if you don’t have the communication to make sure you’re on the right course or doing what you need to do for quality checks, there’s a lot of chances for mistakes. With the custom earsets, if somebody needs to step away from the machine, they can just buzz into my radio and it doesn’t cause any issues or confusion.”

Menasha Corporation has had its CavCom solution for the past 15 years. Over that time, the devices have continued to support the company’s hearing conservation program and given employees the resources they need to communicate during production hours. Since first outfitting the corrugation team, Menasha has gone on to outfit their entire facility,  including those who do not work in high noise,  with custom fitted earset and earplugs (including RadioGear®, CellEarz™ and EarzON® products).

Thank you, Brian, for sharing your experience with CavCom TTYE technology!