During the week of March 30^th, Gardner Intelligence conducted its fifth survey to gauge the effects of COVID-19 on discrete parts manufacturers across all the industries that Gardner Business Media covers. The survey focuses on 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.

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

To view all the charts for this week click here. In the charts posted, the percent of respondents as of April 3^rd are green dots and the percent of respondents as of March 27^th are gray dots. The orange bars indicate the severity of the impact as of April 3^rd and the gray hashes indicate the severity of impact as of March 27^th.

Generally, there was a very small percent change in changes experienced by manufacturers during the week of March 30^th. This indicates that since the beginning of March, manufacturing may have reached a point where it had adjusted to the new norm of the pandemic.

According to last week’s survey, ripple effects, effects that manufacturers could not tie directly to COVID-19 but believed to be a result of the pandemic, were experienced by 48% of manufacturers. This was up just two percentage points from the prior week. The percent of manufacturers experiencing changes to supplier lead times and supplier accessibility/responsiveness decreased slightly from the prior week. Just under 40% of manufacturers experienced both changes the week of March 30^th.

All changes experienced by manufacturers lessened in their severity in the fifth week of the survey as the percent of responses that indicated a major impact declined in every case. While the percent of respondents indicating a major impact declined, the percent of respondents indicating a moderate impact universally increased. In most cases, this was due to the reduction of major impact. However, for ripple effects and supplier lead times, there were fewer respondents indicating minimal impact as well.

In the fifth week of the survey, every adjustment made by manufacturers increased in the percent of manufacturers making that adjustment. The most significant change was in budgets/spending. During the week of March 30^th, 55% of manufacturers reported making changes to budgets/spending versus just 39% in the prior week. There were also significant changes to hiring/recruiting, up to 45% from 32% the prior week, and staffing/headcount, up to 41% from 30% the prior week. There was also a notable increase in adjustments to compensation. It is clear in that during the week of March 30^th a significant number of manufacturers adjusted employment and compensation. It is important to note that the responses to the survey were prior to the official launch of the Paycheck Protection Program.

In almost every case, the severity of the impact to the adjustments made by manufacturers decreased in the fifth week of the survey. Typically, the adjustment had a reduction in major to moderate impact. The only notable exception to this was staffing/headcount, which saw a small increase in the percent of respondents indicating a major impact.

During the week of March 30^th, the percent of manufacturers open normal hours declined to 48% from 60% the previous. Almost all of these facilities shifted to reduced hours. Also, the percent of manufacturers at the usual staff level decreased to 34% from 45% the week prior. While many of these manufacturers shifted to moderately or significantly reduced staffing, about 3% of manufacturers increased their staffing at least moderately compared with normal.

Regarding the medical industry, the percent of manufacturers that had been serving the medical industry and increased that service nearly doubled the week of March 30^th as did the percent of manufacturers that began serving the medical industry. Also, there was a small increase in the percent of manufacturers looking to serve the medical industry now.