COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Updates
All our facilities are fully operational. Use the table of contents below to stay up to date on important information on safety precautions, updates from carriers, facilities, and more.
Table of Contents
Overview
There is no higher priority to our entire DCL Family than the safety of our customers and employees. As coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread, we want to first assure you that all of our facilities are open, fully functional, and running smoothly. We also wanted to share the actions we are taking to help protect you and our employees, as well as keep our operations running smoothly.
All of us at DCL understand that this issue is cause for concern to many, and we offer our deepest sympathies to those who have already been affected. As circumstances continue to develop, one thing will remain the same: the DCL team and I will make decisions that prioritize the health and well-being of our members, customers, employees and communities—you are our highest priority.
If you are an existing DCL customer and have questions, please reach out to your Account Manager or contact us.
Safety Precautions
Hygiene Measures:
- All employees, temporary personnel or any person entering the buildings are required to either wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer.
- We have enhanced our cleaning throughout our offices and facilities. We have increased the frequency of regular cleaning in all areas, including sanitizing door knobs and all common surfaces (chairs, tables, bathroom sinks, toilet handles, countertops, copy machines, desks, workstations, railings, telephones).
- Placement of bottles of sanitizers and disinfectant wipes throughout the workplace.
- Providing and placing boxes of tissues throughout the facility.
- Emphasizing to all personnel the avoidance of touching their face
- Removing magazines and papers from waiting rooms and common areas such as employee lounges and kitchens.
- Prominent signage throughout the workplace stressing the importance of appropriate hygiene measures.
- Encourage social distancing, minimum 6 feet apart.
Containment Measures:
- We are not permitting visitors in the building unless it is mission critical to our business. As an alternative, we are recommending that meetings be handled via phone or video conferencing.
- Drivers for both courier and LTL, for both shipping and receiving, will not be permitted beyond the caged enclosure or marked off areas near the shipping and receiving docks.
- Outside maintenance workers will be allowed in our buildings but only if necessary and only if they have not traveled outside of the US or flown within the US within the last 21 days.
- We have identified certain groups and individuals at each site, who are not responsible for the distribution operation, to work from home.
- For employees who are feeling ill, we’ve asked them to not return to work until they have received medical clearance from their doctor.
- For those working at each site, we are emphasizing they need to stay within their physical department area.
- Staggered breaks for all employees to encourage social distancing. All common spaces, including break rooms and kitchens, are being thoroughly cleaned between breaks.
- We have suspended all business related travel for our employees unless it is mission critical.
- Employees or temporary personnel who have traveled internationally will not be permitted to work unless they have received clearance from a doctor.
- We are working closely with our temporary agencies and limiting new agency personnel, with the goal to only permit the groups that we are currently utilizing to remain in our building.
Business Continuity Plan
Ensuring that we are still able to ship for our clients remains the number one priority and we have developed two main plans as an emergency contingency in case an employee has tested positive for COVID-19.
- Plan 1: We have identified key leadership as well as other skilled operational employees, who will work from home. In case of mass exposure, they will come in and run the operation along with temporary personnel.
- Plan 2: We have two facilities in each of our California regions, Fremont and Ontario. We are re-balancing key personnel across the entire organization between the two buildings in case of exposure in one of the other buildings.
In both these plans, all employees and personnel will be tested for COVID-19 when the tests become readily available and they are qualified to be tested. Those who test positive will be sent home indefinitely and not be allowed to return until they pass a second test. We will temporarily pause operations and undergo a facility deep clean before resuming the operation.
We will continue to assess our inventory levels for packaging materials and supplies on a weekly basis. We have asked our team to keep a minimum of 60 days inventory on hand for high volume items. We deal with all major couriers and multiple carriers and we do not anticipate a major disruption at this time. However, we will continue to work with our transportation partners to understand their situations and will pass along any updates. Importantly, the WHO and the CDC have stated that the likelihood of the COVID-19 virus contaminating cardboard or other shipping containers is low.
The DCL leadership team will be meeting daily to update and share any new information and revise our COVID-19 Action Plan. It is our commitment to our customers, that should anything change, we will quickly communicate any information that has an impact on your business.
Carrier Updates
UPS and FedEx Small Parcel (4/9/20):
Small Parcel Delivery Performance
UPS and Fedex have reported residential delivery performance is down slightly. As of this week, on time delivery for UPS and FedEx has dropped to 89.8% and 82.3%, respectively.
Both carriers are working extended hours to manage increase in demand and get on-time delivery performance back up.
Air Freight Capacity Updates (4/7/20):
Inbound and Outbound Air Freight
Domestic freight continue to move without major delays and parcel carriers are experiencing some slight delays in their on time performance. Overall, USPS, UPS and FedEx are extending their delivery times much like they do during peak season to get as much freight delivered on a daily basis as they can
Air Cargo Impact:
- North Americas-Europe: Significant capacity reductions in both directions. Space is available with constraints; no transit time guarantees.
- North America-Asia: Capacity still constrained. Freighter schedules from the US are still inconsistent, but are ramping up and getting back to normal. Capacity constraints in Asian transit hubs remains to destination without direct flight options from the Americas.
- North America- Middle East and Indian subcontinent: Significant capacity in both directions. Broad travel restrictions are reducing capacity to freighters only.
- Worldwide capacity still falling. Global capacity is down 22% vs. last year, and additional declines are expected, according to Seabury. On a trade lane level, there is no longer any significant difference between capacity in/out of Asia and capacity in other regions.
- Belly capacity declining, freighter capacity rising. Global belly capacity is 35% of what it was in January and still falling because of air travel restrictions and closed borders. Increases in freighter capacity are not sufficient to offset the loss of belly capacity. The current decline in belly capacity is equivalent to capacity of 400 Boeing 747-8 freighters a day,
- Freighters now 75% of capacity along all trade lanes. Freighter capacity on Europe/US lanes has doubled since imposition of latest US travel restrictions and reached 80% of air cargo capacity on those routes last week. Nearly all major international airports seeing increases in freighter capacity.
- Outbound China capacity is increasing. Freighter flights are increasing and above 2019 levels, despite continued constraints on belly capacity.
Delivery Updates (4/3/20):
United States Postal Service: International Deliveries
Due to Covid-19 local deliveries have been halted to the following 22 countries.
1. Botswana
2. Cayman Islands
3. Chad
4. Ecuador
5. Fiji
6. French Polynesia
7. Honduras
8. India
9. Kuwait
10. Libya
11. Madagascar
12. Maldives
13. Mongolia
14. New Caledonia
15. Panama
16. Peru
17. Samoa
18. Saudi Arabia
19. South Africa
20. Bolivia
21. Sri Lanka
22. Zimbabwe
A complete list of countries and the current status can be found at the following website.
USPS’ International Service Alerts
Delivery Updates (3/18/20):
Business-to-business Deliveries
If you are shipping orders to businesses – effective immediately, both UPS and FedEx have stated the following:
- They will hold Business to Business package(s) for only 9 calendar days.
- They will leave a note to the consignee to contact the carrier when open.
- If the consignee is not open by the 9th calendar day they will return the package(s) to the shipper.
- USPS has not come out with a statement yet.
In addition, for LTL shipments into the San Francisco, Bay area, and any area that has implemented the ‘Shelter in Place’ order should be aware of the following: Federal Express Freight has stopped all LTL services as most customers are closed. Old Dominion Freight lines will not accept freight unless they have confirmation that the consignee is open and they have a contact and phone number.
DCL is strongly encouraging that before our clients ship to business entities they make sure they are open and are accepting packages.
Consumer-to-consumer Deliveries
We have not experienced any major interruption for our direct-to-consumer deliveries.
Effective immediately, FedEx has stated it won’t require customers to physically sign for “most” deliveries made in the US. You can learn more about how FedEx is responding to the COVID-19 situation here.
