On 16th March Boris Johnson announced the next steps required to delay and flatten the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic. We are clearly facing an unprecedented challenge as a country and as an industry.
ASSA ABLOY UK have been monitoring the developing situation closely through our daily situation review meetings where any major developments/changes are cascaded throughout our business which drives our actions. These reviews are underpinned by regular meetings of our business continuity team comprising the leaders of all our business units. Critical to our approach is to ensure business continuity for our customers whilst mitigating the risk of the spread of the virus and risk to our employees. We have in place a number of specific actions to manage the resulting risks:
• Supply chain – we have defined our critical suppliers and the supply situation is reviewed daily. Being a global player we can rely upon our overseas sourcing offices to monitor and react close to the source of manufacture. We also utilise some of the largest international freight forwarders who are in the best position to advise and assist any cross border shipping challenges as they might occur.
• UK manufacturing operations – we are implementing staggered manning patterns/breaks where possible to increase separation of staff. We are also taking active steps to reduce the overall number of people attending each site, therefore reducing risk of spread to our critical on-site operations.
• Remote working – we have the systems capability to enable key employees to work from home to mitigate the risk of disruption through staff absence
• Employee health – we are following all government guidelines regarding working practices, travel, internal and external meetings and travel. Increased routine hygiene protocol has been in place for several weeks.
• Contingency planning – to offset the impact of progressive “lock-downs” initiated by the UK Government restricting freedom of movement, or the ability of one of our sites to operate, contingency plans are being developed and refined on a daily basis following latest UK Government guidance
We would appreciate your co-operation in helping us to meet these challenges over the next few weeks by helping us to forecast and prioritise demand and to closely manage our collective supply chain.
Please be reassured that we are taking measures in an organised, controlled and pro-active way and we will continue to monitor, refine and improve our approach as the developing situation demands. Should our situation change significantly in the future we will keep you updated.
In the meantime your Mul-T-Lock Regional Sales Manager is still available to assist you as required and to help, all contact details for the team can be found here.
Our customer service, marketing, product management and technical support teams are also still available on the regular email addresses and telephone number; 01902 364 200, internalsales@mul-t-lock.co.uk and tech.support@mul-t-lock.co.uk. Please do not hesitate to contact them.
You also have access to Webshop our online shop: https://shop.assaabloyopeningsolutions.co.uk/en-GB/uk/multlock that also provides visibility of all your invoices and orders whether placed on Webshop or via other routes, as well as access to marketing materials and product information. If you don’t have a Webshop account please register today: https://shop.assaabloyopeningsolutions.co.uk/UserRegistrationForm?myAcctMain=1&catalogId=11762®isterNew=Y&langId=-1002&storeId=16101
We wish you all the best in the coming days and weeks and will strive to support you and your business through these turbulent times.
Best wishes,
Claire Blakemore
Managing Director, Mul-T-Lock UK