Published on October 15, 2020
FDU's Rothman Institute to Present Annual Family Business Awards Oct. 21
Norwalt Design, Inc., of Randolph is among seven businesses that will be honored during Fairleigh Dickinson University Rothman Institute's 28th annual New Jersey Family Business of the Year Awards on Oct. 21.
(JPG, 62KB)Norwalt Design is being honored in the Over $10 Million in Sales category. The judging criteria is family history, family values, innovation and perseverance, community involvement and future vision.
(JPG, 45KB) Keynote speaker Christian D'Andrea,
Winners will be announced at a virtual awards program on Wednesday, October 21st at noon. The keynote speaker will be Christian D'Andrea, CEO of Soldier Fuels and founder of ShopFamily.org, which is kicking off a new movement focused on supporting family businesses. Visit the event announcement to register and to see the agenda. Attendance at this virtual event is free.
Founded in 1971, Norwalt Design, Inc., is a closely-held family business that manufactures custom assembly machines with a primary focus in large-scale automation for consumer goods and medical device products. At the outset of the pandemic, Norwalt pivoted to automate COVID-19 test kit production to meet the urgent public health demand as healthcare companies were struggling to assemble COVID-19 test kits at high speed and high volume. Norwalt stepped in to take existing automation solutions from other industries and apply them to test kit assembly.
To date, Norwalt has successfully delivered two separate systems to two healthcare companies, both of which required extremely fast turnarounds for their projects. At the onset of both projects, Norwalt met as a team to ensure that both the company's employees and supply chain could meet the rigorous demands involved. The business was restructured into smaller teams to efficiently divide the workload and accomplish the unprecedented feat.
Norwalt is currently in the process of building five more systems for other healthcare companies across the nation. The types of test kits involved range from PCR tests to saliva tests to paper litmus tests. To date, every system has been delivered on-time and is performing at the speeds required to set new industry standards for high-volume test kit production.
(PNG, 15KB)Part of the Silberman College of Business since 1989, FDU's Rothman Institute supports entrepreneurship and innovation in the academic, business, and nonprofit communities. An outstanding entrepreneurship curriculum taught by an excellent faculty has helped make the academic program among the top 20 in the nation. In addition, our innovative outreach programs help people succeed in their new or growing ventures as well as in their corporations or organizations.