(Love) Service in the time of (cholera) corona

With the 2020 Covid19 pandemic outbreak, everybody’s life has been subject to a big change.

Since last March Italy experienced a lockdown that obliged most of the activities to be shut down for many weeks up to May but, as we know, glass factories were one of few exceptions due to its nature and haven’t been stopped. So did Revimac, belonging in the supply chain to support to glass industries.

Manufacturing-wise, the operation got “almost” back to normality at the beginning of summer, but it was not the same when we talk about the installation services we use to carry out at our customer plants. Several installations, especially abroad, have been postponed for the most or supported by remote assistance and video conference, you already read similar stories.

As a really big part of the Revimac name is related to the well-appreciated support that our service team has always granted, last year was no exception. However, many service activities had been forced to be rescheduled due to the changing situation in several country and, let us say, “OH BOY how hard has it become to perform services in this period!”

First of all, the planning has become trash because of the increasing lockdowns and everything has been scheduled and rescheduled an endless number of times.

To manage and organise services to the glass factories has always been complicated in Europe due to the strong safety measures and services are strictly regulated due to the harsh environment we work in, we know this, but in this period many other health protection rules to prevent the Covid spread have been applied.

Nowadays some behaviours are taken from granted like wearing a face mask, measuring the temperature when entering the plant and using hand-washing gel but then there’s a lot of arbitrary and unpredicted request different plant by plant that hit logistics and human resources cost.

Disposable overall and general personal protective equipment are nowadays double in cost, special helmets with facial protection are mandatory in some plant, some factories took care of dedicated structures such as locker rooms, dining rooms and toilets needed when performing maintenance but some other did not, some others just limiting access to those structures, and then add the hundreds of COVID-19 test for all the people going to or re-entering from  missions abroad.

Last but not least, our colleagues performing installations abroad had suffered heavy restrictions during hard lockdown and curfew, that locked  them into their hotel rooms at evening and during the weekend, denying also the well-deserved recreational time after a hard day of work. This situation in some cases went on for many and many weeks, months, away from home.

All those problems have been a big mountain to climb and were a big burden on the human side, the organization and the economic.

Glass container making has got a somehow magic appeal and when the installation of an IS machine is done and one is looking to the line operating flawlessly at high speed, it truly seems a work of magic, but it’s not. As a matter of fact, it is a superb work of engineering designed, managed, handled, delivered and installed by devoted people with a real love for glass that, despite all odds, keep going abroad and risking health under these severe circumstances, with sometimes a bad outlook for the near future.

Especially to whom spent most of the time abroad, away from their families and making huge sacrifices for dedication to their profession, to them goes our deepest respect, esteem and thanksgiving.

We all do our part in this particular historic period and we will have to endure for some more time, but not forever as: “It is life, not death, that has no limits”.