Distrupol Update on Coronavirus (COVID-19) 24-3-20

Chertsey, 24th March 2020

Dear Valued Customer,

The health and safety of our customers, suppliers, and employees – is our primary concern, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify around the world. We have global and local COVID-19 response teams in place which are monitoring updates and advice from government agencies and health care organisations in order to take swift action.

As a company that is Serious About Safety, our response teams are committed to a proactive, preventative approach in running our business. Though this is unchartered territory we find ourselves in today, we are prepared. We have comprehensive business continuity plans in place to monitor and mitigate impacts on our operations. This includes continuing to test and evolve our scenario planning across our network and making any adjustments as needed.

On March 13, we conducted a Global Safety Stand-Down, requiring all facilities around the world to cease operations for up to one hour to review COVID-19 prevention recommendations by World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), as well as company policies and protocols related to COVID-19.

Each day, we continue to receive a growing number of questions about any countermeasures we have in place to ensure business continuity. We want to share the steps in our contingency plan to protect our employees’ safety and maximise business continuity to our customers and suppliers:

• We have prioritised the need to ensure our logistics capabilities and networks are reliable during this critical time.
• Because reducing the spread of the virus is critical, we have stopped all non-essential business travel for all our employees, wherever they reside and will follow country specific protocols on personal travel.
• We are requesting all non-essential employees to work from home where possible and have increased the bandwidth of our VPN to support them.
• Based on current health advisory guidelines, we no longer permit on-site visits to our branch or office locations. The only exception are essential partners that are making deliveries to or from our facilities. Even these essential parties have limited access to our facilities.
• We have a 4-tier crisis ranking system and appropriate action plans in place relevant for each of our facilities ranging from normal operations to risks for closure.
• It has been determined that our operations are essential to continue critical manufacturing; therefore, we are equipping our essential employees with letters to permit travel (for work).
• We have postponed all in-person meetings (both on and off site), and have implemented strict social distancing policies at all Distrupol facilities where employees are still in attendance.
• As investors in technology, all employees are equipped with home-working packages and digital tools in order to maintain key business functionality via phone calls and web-meetings.  

We are continuously monitoring the situation closely with our suppliers, and assessing the impact as this outbreak evolves to ensure we provide the most relevant information to help navigate the road ahead. Should any additional information regarding disruption in our supply chain occur, we will promptly inform affected customers to work out a continuity plan as the situation allows or notify them about any unforeseen consequences.

Know that we are diligently focused on continued service. Our commitment to you remains at the forefront of our efforts, and our teams are ready and available to support you.

We are only a phone call, email, text or click away.

James Stanton
Commercial Manager
Distrupol

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