March 25, 2020 (UPDATE)
Dear clients and partners,
Recently we’ve seen several states take varying levels of executive action in order to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. In just the last few days Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan have all issued their own versions of executive orders mandating that residents “shelter-in-place” for the next few weeks to help protect the population from the effects of this virus. As a result, however, businesses within those states, as well as across the country, are being impacted significantly and are working as hard as they can to function within the parameters of these new executive orders, trying to service their customers to the fullest extent possible.
Unfortunately, Steelcase is also being impacted significantly by these recent mandates. On Sunday, Steelcase received notification from the state of Michigan stating it would enact a “shelter-in-place” mandate as of 12:01 a.m. on March 24th. As with other similar mandates around the country, all “non-essential” businesses have been ordered to close, except for the manufacturing of orders for clients that are deemed “essential”. This new mandate affects all Michigan operations, however, plants outside of Michigan are still operational at this time.
Given these new conditions, Steelcase has implemented a hold on all orders that are scheduled to be produced in the next 30 days. Any new orders placed as of Tuesday, March 24th will be registered and placed on hold so that they will remain in the production queue to ensure they can be started as soon as possible once production resumes.
Forward Space will continue to take orders, working with our clients and Steelcase to identify businesses classified as “essential”, according to regulations. If identified as “essential”, we will work together to move those orders into production and confirm when they’ll be scheduled. Any existing orders placed on hold as a result of the recent mandates will be released if and when the business can provide documentation indicating that it meets the criteria for an “essential” business. Please continue to work with your salesperson to provide any necessary information/conditions and appropriate documentation to ensure “essential” orders will be processed in a timely fashion.
While this level of operational disruption is unprecedented for Steelcase, they are working 24/7 to honor as many client commitments as possible. The COVID-19 situation is rapidly changing, but we will continue to communicate updates as they happen.
In addition to what Steelcase is doing, many of our other vendors are dealing with different operating constraints, depending on their geographic location. We will be monitoring your orders closely and notify you of any issues communicated to us pertaining to new vendor or governmental requirements/restrictions. If you have any questions regarding recent or upcoming orders, please do not hesitate to reach out to us to discuss them.
We stand with you during this tragic human health crisis and we’ll do everything we can to continue to move your projects forward, when possible.
Sincerely,
Jenny Niemann
President and CEO