We are in a fast-moving situation as we all try and safeguard our staff and businesses in regard to the COVID-19 virus, and suppressing infection spread.

Please be assured all of us at Acorn are doing our bit to ensure we carry on delivering normal services and deliveries in this extra-ordinary time.

DELIVERIES & WAREHOUSE

We ask all our clients to put measures in place that ensure that we can make safe deliveries to you with minimal contact.

Our delivery staff are under instructions to minimise outside contact, and are taking appropriate PPE (personal protective equipment) precautions, including glove and hand sanitiser use.

We are closing our warehouse to external parties, with any deliveries to ourselves being dropped in a safe zone outside our facilities, deposited on trolleys for entry to Acorn’s safeguarded warehousing/processing zone.

In this way we are minimising contact for our essential warehouse staff to reduce any infection risk and limit potential disruption to services. Again, extra PPE and hygiene measures are in place inside our facilities to bolster this.

CLIENT SERVICING

We expect all operations to carry on as normal, but we are making some sensible changes to safeguard our service and staff.

The majority of our office staff are moving to remote working as of today, 17th March. You will still be able to contact us as usual through our switchboard, although callbacks may be necessary for you to talk to the right person (as our team will be distributed and working from home). Please bear this in mind with regard to communication and requests, as response times may be slightly effected.

We are making these changes in particular to reduce any potential disruption for our DLF (direct line feed) operations.

SUPPLIES & INVENTORY

Our network of suppliers is currently robust, and we at present have adequate component supply and buffer stock. Acorn have taken additional measures to monitor this situation as a priority.

Chinese suppliers are rebounding in production. We are working around disruptions from Italy. Current supplies from the US are good, but we cannot rule out disruption from this source, along with possible trading limitations. If you have any concerns that this may affect your supply please talk to us ASAP so we can work with you to plan around any risk of supply limitations.

On the horizon: we may have potential issues with Stainless Steel supply for machined components manufacturing (Italy). We are monitoring the situation and will advise as necessary to relevant clients.

The good news is that by working with us as a procurement partner and/or master supplier, we have buffer stocks and extra inventory, and can utilise our global supplier network to work around risk.

Please relay any special measures you have now, or are putting in place, so we can comply with them, and we can all align in the fight against infection.
Please speak to us if your risk planning requires additional component/PPE supply and buffer stocks.

PROTECT YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

A best practices checklist to protect your supply chain.

Make an assessment of inventory and component supply to ensure reliable delivery to your production line. Consider additional inventory and buffer times.
Complete an assessment of suppliers and supplier networks to monitor for any potential negative impacts, and plan around these.
Identify and monitor risks that could affect your supply chain. Acorn as a master supplier and specialist can help you manage and control this area more effectively.
Work with logistics partner(s) to identify alternate suppliers from different geographic areas to limit dependencies on specific regions as they become impacted.

You can stay updated relating to COVID-19 and any additional special measures or news, through our social channels, and also at our Special Measures page.

Thanks for your understanding and help during this time.
Keep safe and we’ll get through this together.