Conner COVID-19 Updates

To our valued customers and partners,

While everyone across the globe continues to navigate the uncertainty of COVID-19, Conner is committed to supporting your supply chain throughout the course of this pandemic and to provide continuity of service to the full extent possible.  We realize that in this time of crisis, it is crucial that we make it possible for you to continue your production and help you respond to the unique supply chain demands that you may be facing.

Conner’s leadership team is meeting as needed to assess and appropriately respond as this situation evolves, to adjust our operations to maintain continuity, and to support the safety and health of our employees and customers.  We continue to operate in accordance with guidance from local government and public health authorities across the nation, and we have put virus-mitigating actions in place to help reduce potential transmission.

We are working tirelessly to help everyone stay safe, while at the same time continuing to serve you.  Please feel free to reach out with any additional questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

David Dixon
CEO, Conner Industries, Inc.

We are seeing the possibility of 1-2 day delays as we battle employee sickness as well as take on new business.  Our normal demand patterns have significantly changed and we remain nimble to react to key customer requests. Currently, we are back to our normal operations and are not seeing any significant delays.

All of our industrial lumber products are provided to us from sawmills located inside the United States.  We do not purchase industrial lumber from suppliers outside of the country, except in very specific customer circumstances.  While we currently have sufficient lumber in inventory to meet the needs of customers, and have access to many U.S. sawmills that will allow us continued supply.  We don’t believe lumber supply will become a problem.

Currently, we are seeing little or no impact on lead times for industrial lumber or industrial packaging.  Because we have redundancies built into our manufacturing process, we have other plants that can take over in the event that one of our plants must temporarily cease operations due to the virus.  We don’t expect our customers to see any disruptions.

We are seeing some transportation shortages throughout the country as transportation providers try to keep up with demand in certain industries (ie. Medical shipments, groceries, etc.).  While we have our own trucks, and use them as often as possible, outside carriers are in high demand and their rates are rapidly increasing.

We currently have a sufficient supply on non-lumber supplies, such as fasteners, but we are concerned about the availability of mold inhibitors.  Mold inhibitors are largely produced outside of the U.S., and many of those agents are being consumed elsewhere to fight the virus.  It is possible that we could find ourselves with a shortage at some point, but rest assured that we’re doing everything possible to mitigate any potential impact to our customers.

We do anticipate that there may be some labor shortages in the short term with school closures and potential new cases of infection.  In addition, we have a concern with the CARES Act and how it will encourage those who can access unemployment to stay on unemployment until the enhanced benefits expire in July.  Conner is working on plans to address this, including retention of existing employees and our ability to recruit and retain future employees.

We will continue to update this page over the coming days as needed.  It is important to us that we remove as much uncertainty from your supply chain as possible.  If you have any immediate questions or concerns, please feel free to contact your account manager or reach out to us directly.