Covid-19 Update 24th March
As we continue to monitor the latest updates and information about the global COVID-19 outbreak, we are taking additional measures to ensure we safeguard the health of our employees and preserve our ability to operate in order to best serve our customers.
Customers may be aware of our full product range, but more typically customers are purchasing a smaller selection of our product range or using our service function to keep their instruments running correctly. Please see below for the known and unknowns that are particular to specific products and services:
Test Kits
We have an extensive stock of a number of test kits, our faster moving lines if you like. Our orders coming in from America at this point remain unaffected but we are seeing slightly longer lead times on some of the kits so needless to say do not leave your stock short, order well in advance.
Consumables
We have not yet seen any issues with supply of the plastic consumables required to run the above test kits, thankfully we have standing orders in place with our Suppliers and are of the understanding that they keep the stock aside for us so we hope this will remain unaffected.
Parts
We have an extensive stock of parts for all instruments that we supply and again we have not yet seen any issues with parts coming into us.
Delivery
This has four factors:
· The test kits we purchase travel via FedEx air freight which as far as we are aware are still running and as we see it, they’re classed as essential goods so they should remain unaffected
· The parts we order come via TNT air freight and again this seems to be unaffected.
· Orders to our customers around the UK, we use DPD for most of our shipments, they remain unaffected for now but we do have the option to send with FedEx or TNT if we start to see problems. We do have contingency plans in place for if the UK couriers stop working, customers will be able to pick up from our Warrington warehouse (this assumes that the business is open as we move forward in dealing with the spread of the virus.)
· Order to our customers around the world or return of instruments requiring repair to our suppliers in America or Europe do seem to be experiencing delays but they are still getting to their destination.
Servicing
As it stands our Customer Support Engineers are still working. We have 2 engineers on the road and 2 in-house (mainly working from home but still taking calls.) Our engineers on the road are in daily communications with the office to ensure that they are not symptomatic or have not come in to contact with anybody with Coronavirus. Needless to say we would not send them on to site if they had.
At this point we are still able to provide Pre-Planned Maintenance to your equipment as it is essential to production and are still able to attend site for essential on site repairs. We are aware that a lot of our customers are not allowing visitors on site so in this case if you have any problems, give us a call and if we can’t help over the phone then we will arrange collection of the instrument and repair it at the office. We have an extensive range of loan equipment that can be sent to you to in order to avoid any downtime.
Although maintaining the highest standard of hygiene has always been a priority for us given the industry that we are in, we are now taking even more precautions around the office, warehouse and on site.
As with many businesses we are down to absolute skeleton staff in the office, we have split the workforce into teams and only have 3 people in at one time (phones/order processing, picking/packing and an engineer) so please bear with us if it takes longer than normal to answer the phone. If your call is not answered then please leave a voicemail or e-mail us on info@calibrecontrol.com
As the situation remains fluid, we will follow UK Government advice and we are planning to be prepared.