VIEWPOINT YOU’VE BEEN PINGED
Victoria Brocklesby, COO at Origin, on how supply chains are being affected by the ‘pingdemic’, and how new protocols are required.
THE COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a multitude of challenges. For those of us working in the construction industry, this has been no different. The lockdowns left sites and factories across the country standing still, with materials in very short supply and prices rising. This situation has then been exacerbated by the ‘pingdemic’ which has affected entire supply chains as more and more people were forced to isolate.
In fact, with almost 700,000 people forced to isolate in just one week in July, it’s easy to appreciate the chaos being caused. Whilst the numbers are bleak, the pandemic has actually facilitated one area of the house building and renovating industry, with more people than ever before looking to improve their properties as they spend more time at home. Fuelled partly by government initiatives like the Help to Build scheme, residential building is happening at a huge rate. As demand within the industry booms, staff shortages, particularly those as a result of being ‘pinged’, are problematic for businesses. For us, our number one priority is, of course, the safety of our staff. We have a duty of care to our staff that will never be compromised. However, we also need our factory
to be performing as effectively as ever to ensure we continue to meet our ‘On Time, In Full’ promise. With this in mind, we introduced a series of rigorous protocols and streamlined processes throughout the company, to ensure our Partners continue to never miss an install day.
Protocols
Despite restrictions being eased in July, social distancing is still important to us. We introduced a new two-shift pattern at our production and warehouse facilities to help us get back to full capacity during the first lockdown, and these methods will continue even post-pandemic. What it does is increase the time in the factory but limits the number of staff who are working at any one time. Social distancing is of course much easier as a result of this and, more importantly, it means that if a test does come back positive, the number of staff members needing to isolate is kept to a minimum. This is extended to our offices as well, where the seating plan is socially distanced to limit contact between those members of staff who cannot work from home. These protocols ensure that the
risk to our staff is minimised and our operations can continue at full capacity. With Origin founded on the ethos that our Partners will never miss an install date, we had to ensure we would keep to this promise. We invested heavily in our stock and manufacturing facilities to live up to this. It would go against our company attitude and culture if we didn’t implement all of the necessary steps to stop the ‘pingdemic’ affecting us.
The world has been constantly learning and adapting over the last
18 months, and our industry is no different. Even as the ‘pingdemic’ made circumstances harder for us, we were not willing to back down from our commitment to our Partners.
The surge in demand in the construction sector is a major opportunity for us and one we will not ignore. We will continue to adapt and innovate to ensure we meet our Partners’ demands, learning from these experiences and growing stronger because of them, whilst keeping our staff safe. BMJ
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