To mitigate the negative impact caused by the pandemic, Wärtsilä is taking steps to minimise the negative impact on its operations. These actions include reduced worktime and temporary layoffs of personnel.
The Finnish manufacturer had immediately activated a global crisis management team when the novel virus broke out in China in January. ‘Since then we have implemented numerous measures to help protect the health, safety and well-being of our 19,000 employees as well as all external stakeholders around the globe,’ the company states.
In addition to the worktime reduction and temporary lay-offs, Wärtsilä is also encouraging social distancing in daily work and restricting all non-critical travel, off-site meetings and external visitors to Wärtsilä sites to contain the virus.
Logistics
While all these measures are in effect, the company strives to maintain and safeguard its logistics and supply management in order to run operations effectively. Wärtsilä says it is in close contact with its stakeholders across the globe to constantly monitor manufacturing, field service and supply chain resources to ensure business continuity.
The company’s Global Logistics Services department supervises the supply and logistics chains daily. ‘Monitoring the supply chain for components, also means that we can react to any potential production disruptions by, for example, switching to other suppliers. We are also exploring opportunities to switch to alternative manufacturing technologies,’ Wärtsilä states.
This article first appeared on Project Cargo Journal, a sister publication of SWZ|Maritime.
