It was certainly good news for the team when we learned that, after the government-enforced 3-week shutdown, we have now been advised that the government wants manufacturers to return to work to help the economy. Naturally those of us who can, are happy to oblige and are already making and dispatching some orders.
There are a number of abnormal constraints that we have to abide by which include:
Only one administrator working on site in the office. The others have to continue working remotely from their homes, which they have been doing very successfully indeed for the 3 weeks of shutdown but it takes a lot more time to achieve an objective than if they were at work.
The production workers have to abide by the Social Distancing advice which slows everything down in the production processes.
We have some workers with underlying health issues that are not normally a problem but because of Covid-19 they have been advised by the National Health Service that they must self-isolate at home until mid-June. The administrators are able to work from home but the production workers are going to be inoperative until then.
These are very important constraints, taken very seriously, especially because they seem to be working effectively and preventing a massive pandemic situation in the UK. Everyone’s health and wellbeing is our first priority and we are doing all that we can to keep working but not at the risk of anyone’s health being affected.
In his report to me yesterday, Carl Johnson, our Operations Manager has quite rightly described our situation as a partial re-opening and summed up our situation in his first paragraph quite succinctly. Carl wrote:
We are advising customers on a daily and increasing basis of our partial reopening and explaining while we are now available to accept their orders it will be on an extended lead time basis. We received no negative responses and those who have responded are very accepting of the situation and fully understanding.
I think that sums up the situation quite adequately and highlights the great relationship that Solar Solve has with its customers all over the world, whom we are involved with and very proud to work with as part of the vital global Marine Industry in which we all serve.
JHL MBE SSL Co. Chairman
