“It is our primary mission at the Rossville Works to bring back continuous manufacturing of the 300B electron tube. This mission is about more than quality manufacturing, it is about the continuation of legendary, Western Electric sound known around the world for over a century. Today, we are closer than ever to delivering on this promise. We are also in the midst of recovering priceless time lost to the coronavirus disease. We have experienced the same disruption felt by nearly every industry worldwide—reduced staffing, halted production lines, timeline adjustments, absent suppliers. A general sense of the unknown has dominated our conversations in past months.”
“Despite these challenges, the lights stayed on at Western Electric. Since March, we have maintained a limited staff at the Rossville Works. We took time to improve safety measures with heavy machinery, review certificates of analysis on all raw materials, and to install virus safety measures in compliance with current CDC guidelines. We were also able to make much-needed upgrades to our secondary heat treatment ovens and anode press equipment. We strongly believe that safely resuming “business as normal” is in the best interest of not only the company, but in the lives of our employees.
Just before the pandemic affected normal operations, we delivered the first batch of consumer-ready 300B’s to pre-order customers and major overseas distributors. We are optimistic that the long-awaited process of order fulfillment will continue in the coming weeks as full manufacturing capabilities return to the Rossville Works.”
