For Rick Plympton, there’s no going back to the pre-Covid economy. The chief executive officer of precision-lens maker Optimax Systems Inc. sees “shifting sands” in many aspects of his business. It’s tough to find enough workers, prices of key inputs are more volatile and there are longer lags between ordering equipment and having it show up on the Ontario, New York firm’s shop floor. There’s also strengthened support in Washington for the US chip-making industry — which uses Optimax lenses — as politicians take in an altered geopolitical landscape. Many of these changes aren’t temporary, in Plympton’s view. Tight ... (full story)