Personal Protective Equipment Since 1973
Dear Loyal Customer,
Global manufacturing and supply chains continue to be negatively impacted by the Wuhan novel coronavirus outbreak. Factories are running, but at far less than capacity. Freight is moving to the ports, but far slower than normal. Goods are moving from Southeast Asia to our shores, but far less predictably than normal. In short, what we collectively face is an unprecedented set of circumstances with no absolute predictability as to when we will return to a normal state.
And while it is our hope that all of these challenges will ease significantly in the coming weeks; the reality is that a return to normal is unlikely until April, at the earliest. In fact, we were just notified by one of our supplier partners that is not even in China that our lead times are being extended immediately by 45 days. The supply chain issues we face are NOT limited to only those goods manufactured in China. This is an unprecedented Southeast Asia supply chain issue and we are responding to it as such.
We are working as hard as possible to provide continuity of supply to you and ask you to understand that in order to do that, we are now making the difficult choice to institute an allocation process designed to serve you on the items you have historically bought from us in the very best way possible. Given that the supply chain interruption is Southeast Asia Wide, our allocation process is being applied to ALL of our products manufactured in the region and not just those items manufactured in China.
We are making these allocations on a thirty-day basis and basing them on historical usage and current on hand inventories. As we approach each successive thirty-day period, we will reassess our current inventories and re-allocate to you accordingly until such time as we no longer need to engage in this process. As goods begin to flow more freely and predictably, our need to allocate will become less and less and you can expect that we will keep you informed as things evolve.
As you place your orders, our customer service team will be adjusting them as is necessary to conform to your specific allocation and will confirm back to you what you can expect to receive. We will not be technically backordering items that are unavailable so we will have no future visibility to the quantity we did not ship. Thus, you will need to understand your subsequent original orders will need to take that into account.
There is no timeline currently available for when our manufacturing, inter and intra-Asia freight and ocean freight will return to normal. Thus, the best we can do is view our sales opportunities against history, the availability of on-hand inventories and in thirty-day increments while we remain vigilant in our efforts to serve you with as little disruption as possible.
We value your business tremendously and are taking this unprecedented step for the sole purpose of supporting you to the best of our ability in very uncertain times.
We will continue to keep you updated as we progress forward and thank you in advance for your patience and loyalty.
Regards,
