In the late 1990s Gillette, the American razor company that owned a slate of businesses including the toothbrush maker Oral-B Laboratories, announced that it would lay off more than a tenth of its 43,000-strong workforce. As many as 4,700 employees would be let go with the closure of 14 factories, 12 warehouses and 30 offices around the world.
Donegal man Liam Cassidy was dispatched to wind down Gillette’s Oral-B factory in Iowa. Despite making one million toothbrushes a day, the factory was struggling to fend off competition from Mexico and China.
Within two years Cassidy had not only saved the Iowa factory, it became the most productive in the entire Gillette organisation.
Staff numbers were cut from 750 to between 450 and 500, and the
