Tag: coronavirus

With many business beginning to return to work and schools starting phased re-openings following recent UK government guidance, we wanted to provide a further update on the measures we’re taking to ensure your safety and that of our colleagues and suppliers, as well as share operational information on what you can expect from us in terms of supporting your needs as we all continue to move forward.

Placing Orders

We understand the critical importance of keeping our supplies to you flowing as normal. We’re still open and taking orders online, over the phone and by email. Our business hours remain the same and our teams are available to assist you with anything you might need from us; please don’t hesitate to get in touch if there’s anything we can do to support you during this time.

Our trade counter at our head office in Bilston also remains open for orders placed in advance over the phone, with payments being card only.

Stock Availability and Order Fulfilment

Whilst we continue to supply our customers with much-needed equipment, we are inevitably experiencing delays in replenishing stock of certain items—particularly PPE and cleaning agents—due to the extremely high demand for these products and interruptions to the supply chain. We appreciate that this has an impact on you, and we’re working hard to mitigate this by improving our supply as fast as possible. Our supply to you is our top priority, and you can find the latest available PPE from us on our online stores.

We are also experiencing disruption to order fulfilment as a result of issues faced by our couriers. We’re remaining in close contact with our logistics partners to support them, however these issues are unfortunately beyond our control at this time.

We’d strongly recommend including a contact telephone number with every order, as this will help to prevent unnecessary delays with our couriers.

Our advice right now would be to place your order sooner rather than later if possible; this ensures that the stock you need will be available to you now, whilst also giving you plenty of time to receive your order well in advance without impacting your operations.

Ensuring Safety

Like every other business, we have had to make changes to the way our colleagues work so that we can continue to serve your needs.

Our colleagues are continuing to work remotely where possible. Where this is not possible, we have made the following changes to ensure the safety of our team:

• We have implemented social distancing measures, such as opening up additional packing lines and spacing out desks of office workers, to minimise proximity to one another
• We continue to adhere to rules that colleagues must wear PPE at all times
• We are upholding our strict cleaning regime for equipment, worktops and hand-washing.

We will continue to follow these practices to make the work environment as safe as possible for our colleagues, and we are continuing to closely monitor UK government guidance on how to best maintain a safe workplace for our team.

Dear Customers and Partners,

As the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation continues to evolve, I’d like to take a moment to personally update you on the actions SciChem is taking to ensure your safety, and that of our colleagues and suppliers.

The safety and wellbeing of our customers, colleagues and suppliers is our top priority. We are closely monitoring the UK Government’s guidance regarding the spread of the coronavirus and have set up a dedicated task force to help ensure our customers, colleagues and partners are kept updated as the situation develops.

Never before has the world needed science so much, and we understand the critical importance of keeping our supplies to you flowing as normal. By keeping people safe, we believe we will be best placed to continue to serve your needs, in order that you, in turn can keep operating. Whilst we know that there are many sectors which are severely affected by lock-downs and shut-downs, we are highly aware and sensitive to the needs of our customers, many of whom are in supply-critical sectors that must keep operating no matter what. We share in your stoicism and are equally determined to keep operating to assure your lab operations can continue to run safely 24/7/365.

Here’s what we at SciChem are doing:

• We have implemented remote working for office-based colleagues, to reduce the risk of infection to our warehouse and logistics team
• We have implemented multiple preventative measures, including further distancing of our warehouse team by opening up additional packing lines, implementing the wearing of gloves, and ensuring the frequent use of hand-washing, hand sanitiser and general cleaning—we now wash door handles, door plates, keyboards, desktops and benchtops multiple times per day with anti-viral cleaning agents and alcohol wipes, with a ‘use-once-only’ policy for any cleaning cloths or wipes
• We have implemented Skype for Business as a standard means of communication in place of customer meetings
• We have instructed any employees who are unwell to stay home and self-isolate—a practice we first implemented some weeks ago
• We have worked with our colleagues to understand that while we live in a time of what seems to be outward fear, it is important to remain inwardly calm and sensible—this ‘mindful’ practice is essential to feeling that we can and will get through this together.

Of course, our continuity of supply to you remains our priority, and by taking the above measures, we believe we are best placed to ensure we serve your needs accordingly.

We are also working non-stop to improve supply of sought-after hand sanitisers, disinfectants, cleaning agents and personal protective equipment including face masks, as fast as possible.

I believe that together we will come out stronger on the other side. If there are ways that we can help you through this, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Together with my colleagues, I thank you for your ongoing custom and partnership, and look forward to continuing to be of service today, and every day.

Yours Sincerely,

Oliver Birkwood
CEO
SciChem