Cummins’ top executive outlined how the Columbus-based company is managing the COVID-19 crisis during its annual shareholder meeting, offering a glimpse of “a new way of operating” during the pandemic.
During a “virtual” annual meeting to protect the health of employees and shareholders during the pandemic, Cummins Chairman and CEO Tom Linebarger described a number of steps the company is taking to support customers while keeping employees around the world safe.
The measures include reducing the number of people at Cummins facilities when possible, redesigning facility layouts, reconfiguring entrances and exits, increasing cleaning and disinfecting protocols, ensuring social distancing is practiced among employees, complying with government and health authority guidelines, among other safety measures, Linebarger said.
“Recognizing that COVID has created an unprecedented environment for our business, we have created teams and organized processes, and these teams are made up of key leadership team members to deal with both the immediate risks and decision-making, and another team to look down the road, plan ahead and make sure we are doing the most important strategic planning we need to do to adapt to this crisis,” Linebarger said.
Linebarger’s presentation featured images of what he described as “a new way of operating” — images showing what that looks like at Cummins facilities around the world.
The images included an employee being screened by an individual wearing full-body protective gear before entering a Cummins facility in India, pallets disinfected at a facility in China and employees in Mexico standing in designated markings painted on the ground to encourage social distancing will lining up to enter a Cummins facility.
“Things look very different now than how we operated prior to COVID-19,” Linebarger said. “We are not returning to business as usual. This is definitely a new way of operating.”
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
