With cases of novel coronavirus COVID-19 still on the rise, we wanted to see how it may be impacting our industry/readership specifically. Earlier this week we conducted an anonymous poll to gauge how companies are handling myriad issues – from travel to sales to supply chain – related to the spread of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
 


Coatings World’s readership is involved in all aspects of the coatings industry – from architectural coatings to industrial coatings and the raw materials and equipment to formulate them.

By product line, poll respondents were comprised of those who manufacture coatings and adhesives and sealants (44%); raw material supplier, which includes additives, resins and pigments and equipment (23%); distributors (14%); and other (19%), which includes consultants, academia, etc. (Respondents were allowed to select more than one product category)

By job function, 30% are in corporate management; 17% are in R&D/formulation; 35% in sales/marketing management; 7% in production/plant management; 8% in other including consultant and academia and remainder in purchasing and packaging.
 
Here are results from the poll: 



We asked the following open-ended question: “What specific aspect of your service, if any, have been affected?”
Responses fell mainly into a few key categories, such as supply issues and concerns about raw material and packaging, decreased interaction with customers and greater sales of specific products that help in the mitigation of the spread of COVID-19, among others. Here is a sampling of the responses:

• “Project schedules have changed and hence sales estimates;”
• “No on-site sales visits to clients, difficulties in shipping in goods from the USA;”
• “Service work and repairs;”
• “Can’t deliver to China, despite the orders, because of shortness of containers;”
• “Since I can travel practically nowhere my consultancy fees dropped to zero;”
• “The transport is more and more reduced;”
• “In-bound logistics;”
• “Orders are down;”
• “Daily lab activities;”
• “Sales and raw material supplies;”
• “Market demand and hence production has gone down;”
• “In India, now some restrictions on travel and office working is indicated by government…in days to come business will decrease;”
• “Import and export/delivery/prices of raw materials/shipment etc.”
• “Avoidance of large groups of people;”
• “Expected raw material issues in the next 2 months;”
• “Shipments are affected due to non-availability of vessels and blank sailing;”
• “Delays in getting raw materials especially from China, resulting in delays in our manufacturing and shipping to the customer, quality of raws has declined in some cases.”

Finally, we asked, “What efforts have you made to improve the overall cleanliness of your workplace?”

Here is a sampling of those responses:

• “More frequency of cleaning;”
• “Social distancing measures;”
• “Disinfectant, hand sanitizers, additional handwashing, restricted contact between teams;”
• “Extra cleaning staff, only essential workforce;”
• “Introduced low-density work in the lab with altered hours and write-up at home;”
• “Working from home;”
• “Isolate from others;”
• “Creating awareness among employees by lectures from doctors. Daily emails and by changing screensaver for all with a message of awareness;”
• “CDC, WHO guidelines are being followed, building cleaned every five days rather than three, disinfection is now part of cleaning in additional areas;”
• “Use 84 disinfectant or alcohol to disinfect workplaces;”
• “Shutdown plant for 2 weeks;”
• “Proper PPE, plant disinfection and education to staff;”
• “CDC guidelines;”
• “General personal hygiene, limited face to face and will implement quarantine measure if any personnel is affected;”
• “Disinfection every 30 minutes, thermal scanning of employees coming in;”
• “Deep cleaning office and lab.”

For more about trade show postponements and cancelations, click here.

For more about how the industry is responding, click here.