COVID-19: CravenSpeed Action Plan

On March 20th, Oregon Governor Kate Brown ordered residents to stay home unless absolutely necessary. At this time CravenSpeed was already compliant with the directives of this order. This post serves to inform our customers how we will continue to carry out our promise to both offer the best customer service in the world, and maintain our same day shipping standard.

The Home Crew

Right now most of our crew is working from home. Luckily, most of us are able to complete 100% of our responsibilities remotely. Things like customer service, web development, purchasing, accounting, etc, are all done via computer using online services. With the help of Jacob and Tristan we were able to get everyone set-up remotely with access to all of the usual information they would need day to day.

The Shop Crew

There are a few jobs that we need to get done every day that require the physical presence of one of our team members. Currently four of our employees are working in the shop daily. Jacob, James, Moriah, and Zack are tackling a variety of jobs, and making sure we are serving our customers as best we can during this time. So far, all orders have shipped on schedule! We have appointed James to be in charge of establishing, implementing, and enforcing social distancing policies, consistent with guidance from the Oregon Health Authority. Originally we were going to implement a 6ft "Strike When Too Close," broomstick policy, but luckily the State of Oregon gave us some better guidelines! The work being done by our shop crew, as well as how we are ensuring their safety is outlined below.

Shipping

The shipping process is one of the most heavily affected processes. We have changed the distribution of order picking so that each person is assigned a section of the warehouse, rather than a random group of orders. Movement throughout the facility has been changed to allow travel to key areas without passing each other in the hallways. This includes using more circuitous and time consuming paths of travel.

Assembly

Assembly is normally handled by a crew of about 4 people. Currently we have Moriah and Zack in the shop working on builds. Stacie has also been picking up the larger build jobs to take home and build remotely.

Production

Production of vinyl decal kits and engraving is all being handled as normal by James. Occasionally we need to fabricate a custom part in order to support a customer who may be experiencing a fitment issue. Like usual Jacob handles this task, and although he is now communicating with Derek remotely, he is completing this task without issue.

Shop Maintenance

As you may know, we sell many of our products on Amazon as well as through our own website. When the pandemic reached a critical status, Amazon began to limit which products could be stored in their warehouses. This meant that much of our inventory had to be sent back to our Oregon warehouse. Jacob has spent much of his time reorganizing and optimizing our storage space so that we can make room for this unusual influx of products. One upside is that now is a great time to make upgrades to the shop, and Jacob has also been working on upgrading our assembly tables. I'll give you one guess what color we painted them!

For everyone in the building regular hand-washing is highly instructed, and bottles of hand disinfectant are readily available in convenient locations. More thorough wipe-downs of common surfaces such as shared computer mice/keyboards, faucet handles, door knobs, bay door handles, picking cart handles, and light switches happen every evening.

Visitors

While normally we enjoy walk-in customers, we have been directed to temporarily close our doors to the public. We have instructed all delivery drivers to simply ring the doorbell and leave their drop-off at the door. Any remote employees traveling to the office will inform the shop employees prior to their arrival, and when possible items will be placed outside for pickup. Anything dropped off at the shop will sit in a remote location for 24-48 hrs, and any surface used by the visitor will be sanitized upon their departure.

The Whole Team

Most importantly for all of us is that we continue to work as a cohesive unit. Our teamwork is being put to the test and we have adopted several new policies to ensure that we are all staying connected to the team. Every day we keep a chat room going to let everyone know when we are checked in or out. We're all sending out daily reports to let everyone know what we have accomplished that day. We've moved our usual bi-weekly all-hands meeting to a weekly video conference which has been extremely beneficial for our mental health. Each day, everything that anyone of us does will in some way affect and require the input of someone else on our team. I (Logan) may be the one typing this, but everyone has contributed to this blog post in their own way! It's our teamwork that allows us to keep orders flowing out of the door, and keep our customers happy! We all realize that we are very fortunate to be here working, and carrying out our business during this challenging time and we thank you all for the support.