Updated 4th February 2021
STI is dedicated to working with its employees, contractors, customers and suppliers to address the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The health and wellbeing of our people remains our top priority and we are closely monitoring and adhering to guidance from the Government, NHS and World Health Organisation. We have a cross-functional team reviewing COVID-19 protocols constantly to ensure the health and safety of our employees, contractors and visitors, while mitigating the potential operational impacts.
All employees who can are now working from home and will continue to be contacted remotely. To help staff who have been affected by school closures, we have also increased flexible working arrangements and will continue to support their developing needs.
For our teams working at our manufacturing sites, we have extensive measures in place to help protect them. We have made the decision to maintain the 2-metre distancing rule based on our success of controlling the health risks across our sites to date.
Control Measures
For everyone’s health and safety we carry out risk assessments and adopt government guidelines as standard. We continue to address the latest COVID-19 developments in all our Operations meetings and adapt procedures to the changing situation.
The measures we currently have in place include:
- Face coverings are compulsory, they may only be removed when at workstations if social distancing is in place or whilst eating/ drinking. Eye PPE or face shields have been introduced to all areas
- Automatic temperature testing using the HIKVISION Minmoe Terminal
- The elimination all non-essential business travel
- Facilitated working from home
- Increased cleaning measures, handwashing and hygiene procedures in line with safety guidance
- Floor markings to ensure walkways abide by the 2-metre distancing rule at all sites
- A one-way system in place for walking around the sites to prevent breaking the 2-metre distancing rule
- To assist with social distancing work areas and desk locations have been reviewed and relocated. Workstations have also had screens installed
- Limiting the seating area in canteens to ensure 2-metre distancing is applied
- Signage to remind employees to clean their tables with the provided cleaning materials once they have finished in the canteen area
- Rules and signage in place for smaller communal areas e.g. toilets, conference rooms and kitchen areas
- Provision of disinfectant wipes for employees to take responsibility for the refreshing of their desks and equipment
- Information, instruction and training have been issued to staff to assist with their welfare
- A restriction on visitors to sites unless critical
- Visitors are provided with workplace information, they must complete a questionnaire declaring they have no symptoms, everyone’s temperature is checked on arrival
- We continue to update the H&S Risk Assessment as new developments occur and verify existing control measures by continuous monitoring
Supply Chain
We are monitoring our supply chain closely to understand any potential impact and activate the
appropriate business contingency plans. STI Supply Chain is reporting the following:
- Reduced manufacturing capabilities throughout the World due to social distancing measures
- PCB lead times extended to 12 weeks in China
- The impact of local lockdowns throughout the World meaning numerous manufacturers now extending lead times
- Brexit and increased use of online services due to Covid-19 is impacting all courier services and we are now experiencing delays
- Large increase in semiconductor demand in the automotive industry
- Price increases and extended lead times on key manufacturers including ST Micro, NXP, Texas Instruments, On Semi and Microchip. Analog devices, Minicircuits and Quectel reporting extending lead times
- Risk of allocation being advised by key broadline distributors
- Fire at AKM crystal factory has meant lead times of 6 months to allocation on numerous crystal manufacturers including IQD, Euroquartz, Abracon and TXC
STI is working closely with the supply chain to minimise the impact of this virus and continue to monitor
and update our customers with any impacts that are known.
We are collaborating with our customers to mitigate this issue, including:
- Working with customers to place their forecast POs earlier to reduce the impact and scheduling deliveries with the supply chain
- Working with customers to place certain parts in buffer stock
- Identifying key lead time parts and securing the already known long lead times
- Monitoring the supplier market trends and feeding back to our customer base
- Import/ Export team supporting with Brexit documentation and fast tracking with couriers
- Offering cross reference alternatives for crystals impacted by the fire
- STI Procurement Team all have the required tools to work from home if required