Remaining Efficient While Flattening the Curve

Response to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought in wide-ranging and necessary limitations on travel and close personal contact. These restrictions and precautions are presenting businesses of all sizes and across all sectors with challenges.   

While the timelines for how long COVID-19 will remain a public threat are unclear, with estimates ranging anywhere between two to 18 months, organizations are building out their business continuity plans to account for travel restrictions and to greatly reduce human-to-human contact.  

One of our industrial partners has shared specifically how it’s adapted to this new normal to ensure that its operations continue to flow, its people and customers are safe and connected, that the company does its part to mitigate the spread of the virus, and that its operations remain efficient.  

Here’s how Roger’s Electric and Machine continues to service their clients  

Rogers Electric is a sales and service provider for electric motors, gear-boxes, pumps, compressors and other equipment, throughout Atlantic Canada. Rogers serves industrials like petroleum, mining, lumber, hydro, water treatment, fisheries, and others. They operate numerous remote locations around Atlantic Canada and a headquarters in Bathurst, New Brunswick.  

In normal operations, the company frequently visits client sites to conduct equipment installations and service. Rogers sometimes has to send multiple technicians to a job site if the task is overly complex or if the on-the-ground resource requires assistance. These procedures had to be adapted to greatly reduce travel and human-to-human contact.  

The company has taken COVID-19 spread mitigation very seriously while also ensuring that operations continue to flow efficiently, and its staff and clients stay safe.   

Here is how they’ve adapted their procedures  

1. Limited the number of employees in each shop by having administrative staff work from home. This limits human-to-human contact at Rogers locations.
   

2. Implemented extensive material handling measures in an effort to avoid surface-to-human infection.
   

3. Freight and equipment are quarantined for a period of time before it is handled by Rogers Electric staff.
   

4. All equipment received by the company must be sanitized before work is conducted.
   

5. All shared and high-traffic areas in Rogers Electric shop are regularly sanitized. At home or at a Rogers location, staff practice thorough hand cleaning and disinfection, in addition to social distancing.
   

6. In an effort to keep staff and clients safe and socially distanced, Rogers has halted travel to client sites for repair and maintenance, opting instead to repair equipment in their various locations around Atlantic Canada.
   

7. Rogers Electric has also gone paperless in its quotation, data collection, and measurement processes. This is in an effort to mitigate the risk of surface-to-human infection.

The technologies that help Rogers be efficient while reducing travel and human-to-human contact  

Here are the technologies that Rogers Electric has either put in place or have had in place that ensure business continuity.  

1. All company meetings are being conducting using the conferencing software, Zoom. This allows Rogers employees to maintain their avenues of communication and facilitate team meetings without gathering people in a physical space. This, naturally, enables staff members to work remotely.
   

2. Rogers Electric uses a custom-built, web-based software that enables its technicians and relevant staff to input repair data in real-time. Employees use a tablet to input data into the system while they complete various steps requires for any given task.
   
   This software allows managers and senior technicians to visualize how each project is progressing in any given Rogers location. This reduces the need for frontline and management to discuss project timelines in person while also ensuring that every relevant team member has access to real-time, reliable project data
   

3. Rogers uses the RemoteSpark mixed reality remote worker support tool to facilitate task support when their field technicians encounter a problem that they don’t know how to fix. The company has moved a RemoteSpark unit to the Bathurst HQ in the event an employee needs assistance from a senior staff member that is self-isolating.
   
   “This has allowed our admin staff to easily work from home. RemoteSpark at this point is going to be our safety net as this situation becomes more serious here in Atlantic Canada,” said Riley Keith, Controller at Rogers Electric and Machine.
   
   “We plan to use it more in-house over the next couple of months while we weather the COVID-19 outbreak. RemoteSpark will allow our non-essential employees to continue to provide guidance, when required, without leaving their homes.”

Filmed pre-COVID-19, here’s how Rogers Electric & Machine uses RemoteSpark.

Want to keep your people safe and ensure your business is prepared for COVID-19? Check out these two resources from the World Health Organization (WHO).

• Advice for the public

• Advice for getting your workforce ready for COVID-19

Are you an industrial operation in need of service? The team at Rogers Electric and Machine are operational and ready to help. You can get a hold of them through their website: https://www.rogerselectric.ca/