24 March 2020

Afera shares COVID-19 best practices and experiences

 

Dear Afera Members,

Since our early decision to postpone Afera’s 9th Technical Seminar in Brussels to 24-26 August, we have seen the accelerated spread of the dangerous coronavirus throughout Europe. Meanwhile, we have lost count of the number of national, Europe-wide and international industry conferences, exhibitions, seminars, meetings and other public events that have been postponed or cancelled. Afera wishes to express its sympathy to the members of the European adhesive tape community, their partners, customers and local associations that have been adversely affected by the crisis, especially those in Italy, Spain, Germany and France, but increasingly elsewhere.

In addition to presenting a serious public health risk, the Virus is wreaking havoc on the world economy. Throughout the world, members of the tape industry are taking various measures to contain the risk COVID-19 poses to their staffs’ well-being and business continuity. Some of these preventative actions include social distancing, workforce staggering and even resizing after reassessing budgets in light of current work safety mandates. Companies are stocking up on gloves and hand sanitizer, spreading out or reducing the number of employees on site both in offices and on assembly lines, and encouraging working from home and phone/video conferencing. Many still are rolling out or updating their business continuity and resilience plans.

Will you share your best practises and experiences with our industry collective?

What are YOU doing in your business to contain the spread of coronavirus? What are your positive coping strategies? What is working and not working in your attempt to create systems of prevention and recovery to deal with this threat? As the linking pin between associations, companies and their leadership, Afera is supporting the European adhesive tape community by sharing the collective knowledge and best practices of our Members for the good of the greater industry. We kindly invite Afera Member Companies to submit your contributions via mail@afera.com.

As Afera’s management continues to discuss and navigate this period of tremendous upheaval, we within the Association and at Lejeune are prioritising the health and well-being of our teams and the long-term health of Afera Member Businesses. Please feel free to reach out to us if we can help you in any way.

Evert Smit
Afera President
&
Astrid Lejeune
Afera Secretary General 

Covid19 virus: measures taken by Lejeune Association Management

Member best practices, experiences and advice


Evonik Nutrition & Care GmbH

Let me share our set-up, which may be helpful. At Evonik in Essen (site with 1,700 people in R&D, production and administration), we have several set-ups: shift models in production with some people at home to replace gaps on demand. Here in R&D and QC, AT we formed 2 TEAMS, changing weekly from lab/office to home office. In some areas, we decided for a 2-team set-up over a shift system to avoid daily changes and contacts. With 2 teams we can place only one person in a small office and only one technician in a Lab room, or areas with longer distance from each other. Also our marketing and sales department started working in 2 teams.

Our team in Shanghai reported some relief of the situation and was using the same system at our big site in China. However, they still continue this pattern. Here in Germany, we are expecting stricter rules from the local government in NRW on the week-end, and Bavaria already announced a knockdown today.

Hope everything will get better in the near future - all the best for everyone !

Take care,

Jürgen Pomorin
Senior Technical Service Manager
RC Silicones EMEA
Interface & Performance
Evonik Nutrition & Care GmbH

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Voronet, S.L.

We would like to share our actions with you. We have built up an action plan in different phases:

  1. Send home people with health risks, such as aged, pregnant and immunosuppressed individuals.
  2. Send commercial personnel to WFH as these people have had contact with a wide range of people.
  3. Send all possible office collaborators to WFH.
  4. Segment the company by areas and colours. No person from one segment/colour is allowed to enter another segment/colour in order to avoid spreading the virus inside the company.
  5. Register body temperatures every morning before entering the Company.
  6. Masks, gloves, distance between persons, virtual meetings, washing hands, hands gel, etc. must be the current foci.
  7. One shift cleans their machines with alcohol and leaves the factory before the next shift enters and cleans the machines again before production start-up.

Those are the most relevant actions which have carried us to the present without any infected persons and no spread of the virus inside our company.
Hope our actions can help somebody.

Best regards,

John Teuthof
Operations Manager
Voronet S.L.

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Henkel AG & Co. KGaA

Without any doubt, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is putting us all in an exceptional situation. At Henkel, we are doing everything in our power to safeguard our employees, defend business continuity and reduce the spread of the virus. The safety and health of our employees, customers, partners and communities is our highest priority. We are in close contact with the responsible authorities and we fully comply with local government measures around the globe.

We have implemented a range of measures that aim to reduce the risk of infection for our employees and help preventing further spread of the coronavirus infection. These measures include among others:

  1. Requiring employees to work from home where possible.
  2. Suspending travels.
  3. Cancelling physical meetings.
  4. Mandatory self-quarantine measures for employees at risk of exposure.
  5. Limiting access to our sites.
  6. Conducting enhanced and more frequent cleaning services at all facilities.
  7. Encouraging employees to practice social distancing, proper hand-washing and hygiene practices.

More on Henkel’s COVID-19-related activities

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Certoplast Technische Klebebänder GmbH

We have been doing more or less the same things that others have reported: We have divided our departments into 2 shifts that do not have physical contact with each other, because there is a 15-minute gap between them. An additional point is that we have designated which entrances our employees should use in order to exclude the small risk of infection by contaminated doors.

Thorsten Meier
Head of Research & Development
certoplast Technische Klebebänder GmbH