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During the week of March 23^rd, Gardner Intelligence conducted its fourth short survey to gage the effects of COVID-19 on discrete parts manufacturers across all the industries that 91ÊÓƵÍøÕ¾ÎÛ publisher Gardner Business Media covers. The survey asked two basic questions:

1. What changes has your business experienced as a result of COVID-19?
2. What adjustments has your business made as a result of COVID-19?

For each of those questions, respondents were asked to compare the current state of their business to the norm prior to COVID-19 and rank the severity of the change or adjustment from minimal to moderate to major.

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Additional questions were added on facility hours, staffing and interest in medical manufacturing in the fourth week.

In the charts above, the percent of respondents as of March 27^th are green dots and the percent of respondents as of March 20^th are gray dots. The orange bars indicated the severity of the impact of March 27^th and the gray hashes were the severity of impact as of March 20^th.

According to last week’s survey, just 24% of manufacturers experienced no change in their business, which was down from 44% in the previous week. This is very likely a result of a number of states closing non-essential businesses toward the end of the survey period during the previous week.

Ripple effects — those that manufacturers could not tie directly to COVID-19 but believed to be a result of the pandemic — were experienced by 46% of manufacturers. Supplier lead times and supplier accessibility/responsiveness were the changes experienced that increased the most, with roughly 40% of manufacturers experiencing changes to both. Further, materials and parts availability were becoming significant issues for manufacturers.

Ripple effects had a slightly more significant impact as the percent reporting these as major impacts increased to 31% from 26%. The impact on supplier lead times was more severe (major impact increased to 47% from 38%); however, the impact on supplier accessibility/responsiveness was even more severe (major impact increasing to 41% from 24%). The severity of impact of materials availability increased sharply while the severity of impact of parts availability lessened somewhat.

In the fourth week of the survey, fewer than 10% of respondents reported making no adjustments to their business. This was down from 17% the week before. Again, the closing of non-essential businesses in many states was the likely the most significant driver.

Travel continued to be the most significant adjustment made by manufacturers. More manufacturers were implementing contingency/backup plans (52% this week versus 45% the week before). And, it became the second most enacted adjustment ahead of tradeshow attendance/participation, which was virtually unchanged from the prior week. The percent of manufacturers adjusting budgets/spending, hiring/recruiting, and staffing/headcount increased notably as more than 30% of manufacturers made adjustments here. However, production/capacity changed more than any other adjustment from the prior week. Last week, 32% of manufacturers adjusted production/capacity compared with 15% the previous week. Also, more manufacturers adjusted lead time and compensation last week.

In almost every case, the impact of adjustments made by manufacturers was more severe. This week 51% of manufacturers reported that the impact of contingency/backup plans were major versus just 35% the week prior. The change in impact of budgets/spending changes was very similar. The most significant change came in the severity of changes to production/capacity. This week, 63% of manufacturers reported the adjustment as having a major impact compared with 31% the prior week.

During the week of March 23^rd, 60% of manufacturers reported normal operating hours while 15% reported reduced hours and 11% were closed. Regarding staffing, 45% were at normal staff levels while roughly 40% were at some level of reduced staffing.

Regarding the medical industry, just 6% of manufacturers had increased their level of service to the medical industry and just 14% were looking to increase or begin their service to the medical industry.