On March 11, 2020, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) classified the epidemic as a global pandemic. We all remember the rest of the story more or less. Massive restrictions on everyday life were the consequence to prevent further spread of the pandemic.

MINDA was and still is affected by these restrictions, which became especially obvious during the worldwide installation and service missions, where at the beginning of the pandemic several questions had to be clarified.

"In the beginning we needed some time to get used to this new challenge and situation, but nevertheless we handled this new task very quickly quite routinely," says Martina Korte. "We had to make sure that the employees were always equipped with the necessary information and documents for the worldwide missions which were urgent for our customers and could not be postponed during the pandemic."

"So far, we've done very well with our strategy and hygiene concept, as during the last year, with almost 1,000 service missions and approx. 450 flights worldwide, we only had infections among returning travelers from one foreign construction site - all other employees returned healthy from their jobs."

Robert Falch adds: "Our top priority is to ensure safety for our employees and customers.

We often even were ahead of the legal requirements with our concept and have always taken stricter measures than officially required. Our primary concern was not to create a kind of "Regulation madness" but to provide transparency, so that the measures are also supported by the employees. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize once again that I am very proud to see how the measures and requirements have been accepted and implemented by our staff. I would like to express special thanks to our technicians and commissioning engineers, who have always supported our customers and us with their full commitment during this difficult time."

"I have also experienced such solidarity among our staff in these months that I have rarely seen before," adds Martina Korte. Of course, the second lockdown has an even greater impact on all employees than on the company itself.

MINDA continues to meet the challenges but also the opportunities of the pandemic in a dynamic and positive way: "We need more optimism and euphoria in society," says Robert Falch.

In a video message, Robert Falch expresses his special thanks to the technicians and commissioning engineers for their commitment!