Northbridge-Riverdale Mills, a wire mesh product manufacturer, has been surviving the pandemic with a 30% reduction in labor and a global shortage of raw materials, but CEO James Knott Jr. said he is not worried.

"The challenge we face is to keep the equipment running and launch the product on the market. I think we have done a good job even with reduced labor," Knott said.

Out of stock has become a problem for manufacturers across the country.

After a winter storm in Texas caused power outages across the state in March, leading to the closure of chemical plants and the world’s largest petrochemical plant, the prices of compounds needed to manufacture products by companies such as Riverdale Mills soared, reaching the highest prices in the country in years .

The power outage caused a shortage of raw materials, which is still affecting manufacturers.

Knott said that supply chain disruptions have made it difficult for companies to supply products on time. In particular, some steel mills were closed or reduced working hours due to shortage of workers during the epidemic, resulting in steel shortages.

"There are many aspects of the business, and almost all areas are affected," Nott said. "A big obstacle is getting people to produce products. We can't do remote work at Riverdale Mills."

Riverdale Mills opened a 390,000-square-foot factory in North Bridge 40 years ago, which first manufactured sickles and bayonets for the Union Army in the Civil War. The company purchases thousands of tons of steel throughout the year, manufactures welded steel mesh products for the shipping, security, construction and agricultural industries, and exports them all over the world.

One of the company's main products is Aquamesh, a marine-grade wire mesh specially designed for New England fishermen and used in 80% of the lobster traps on the continent. 

"Riverdale Mills competes with people all over the world," Knott said. "About 45% of the products we produce are exported. With the weakening of the U.S. dollar, exporting has become easier, and the U.S. dollar has recently weakened. I suspect that it will continue to weaken as inflation hits."

Knott said he expects the industry to rebound in the coming months.

He said: "I believe that as things evolve, they will decline at the same rate, so I think I hope that in three to four months we will be able to get out of this situation." "I know that the plastic factory is back online and It works well, so the supply chain should be cleaned up. Once the steel industry completes some planned plant upgrades and brings people back online. There is enough capacity there."

Knott said that even if there are difficulties in the industry, he will not pay attention to negative factors.

"I don't worry about anything," Knott said. "I strive to do the right thing for the company, let the company continue to grow, and move forward for the employees and our customer base. In order to do this, we put more energy into things that we usually don't need to do every day. For example, chasing unavailable products or categorizing some of them. If we didn’t have these supply chain conditions, these conditions would not exist."

The company said that in addition to material shortages, the 232 tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in 2018 have absorbed hundreds of thousands of dollars from Riverdale Mills in the past three years.

The company's communications director Jane Lanzillo said that despite the increase in taxes, Riverdale Mills has made strategic adjustments and has never passed tariff costs on to its shipping customers.

Lanzillo said that their orders have increased by 60%, and as demand continues to grow, the company urgently needs to hire more workers.

Although Knott said that the company did not lay off workers last year, Riverdale Mills has laid off 30% of its workforce since the pandemic began and currently has approximately 120 employees.

Knott said he attributed this to the stimulus checks and unemployment benefits that Americans received in the past year, which many people believe is the reason for the country's declining labor force.

"At this time of the year, the business is strong," Knott said. He said that the future of his company is to do what they have been doing: to make great products. He believes that the company needs to automate manufacturing equipment—he said this is a priority he has always considered—to reduce costs and operate in the global supply chain. 

"We want to continue to do what we are doing. We are very good at it," Knott said. "The products we produce are world-renowned, and we are investing heavily in factory automation and trying to introduce artificial intelligence in some form. We intend to be here, and we intend to continue to automate what we have in the past."

The story in this version has been corrected. Earlier versions incorrectly reported the percentage increase in orders placed.