In times like this, surrounded by mostly bad news, we hoped the front cover of Dataweek this month would make you smile and you will appreciate some light hearted humour in these dark days of our struggling country, economy and its people.
Microtronix, like most businesses, has been affected by the Covid-19 lockdown but due to some stringent hygienic precautions, including the use of face masks for all staff and regular sanitisation of hands and working areas, the factory is again fully functional and open for business ‘unusual’.
On a very positive note, everyone seems very happy to be back at work and motivated after a long forced holiday for some (although our non-factory/admin teams have been working hard from home) – a scenario one does not normally encounter this time of year. Our biggest challenges have been the interruptions in the supply chain and receiving materials on time, as well as the extremely volatile rand-dollar exchange rate, and the increased cost of freight – component availability is now finally returning to normality but everything now carries a Covid-19 freight surcharge, and along with the weakened rand is pushing up prices of everything we procure.
My hope is that this returns to normal as soon as possible to enable the factories to continue operating smoothly. Unlike many other industries, electronics manufacturing simply cannot operate from home. Another positive factor is the increased enquiries for goods to be manufactured in SA as the result of a seemingly negative sentiment aimed towards Chinese made products among large OEM manufacturers.
The Microtronix strategy to maintain three factories to service all levels of customers is still proving effective as we are able to still offer small clients a 1-100 PCB personal service and fast turnaround time, and offer bigger clients many thousands of products with an equally fast production service and quality.
Once you have joined the Microtronix family we like to think it’s a relationship for life as we grow with you within your business. Microtronix has been running on SAP Business One for over four years now and we are finally seeing some huge advantages with respect to embedded stock control, ease of quoting and stores management, and traceability, with all these benefits hopefully adding to our customers’ overall experience and satisfaction levels.
After 27 years of manufacturing history, our systems are solid, robust and entrenched, and along with quality and reliability we hope to remain a trusted manufacturing partner to all our clients through the tough times that lie ahead of us all – and in typical Microtronix fashion of ‘work hard and play hard’, please feel free to join us in our well stocked corporate bar for a quiet glass of wine or beer to toast to an improved future!
| Tel: | +27 11 792 5322/3 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.microtronix.co.za |
| Articles: | More information and articles about Microtronix Manufacturing |
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