As Spring 2021 approaches, Covid-19 remains a major factor in most of our operations here at UniControl Inc. We continue to be vigilant, doing our best to prioritize the health and well-being of our employees, customers, and the wider community. We appreciate your patient support of our efforts to maintain safe and reliable operations amid daily changes in the business environment.
As an essential business, we focus on actions designed to ensure our ability to keep our doors open, our workforce safe, and our products shipping out to customers who depend upon us. Within the facility, we have adopted enhanced protection strategies. These include providing PPE to our employees, enacting new cleaning protocols, installing barriers and increasing the spacing of workstations, converting to work-at-home assignments wherever possible, and conducting daily health questionnaires and temperature checks for employees returning to the campus. We employ professional cleaning services to mitigate any possible Covid-19 related contamination. We have initiated an internal contact tracing program following CDC guidelines to help us stay ahead of the spread of the virus in the facility. In short, we strenuously comply with all Federal, CDC, state, and local guidelines.
Currently, many of our suppliers are experiencing supply constraints, resulting in delayed shipments to us. We continuously work with our suppliers to monitor and improve their ability to meet our requirements. Even so, the short-term availability of additional materials inventory is unpredictable, and disruptions are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Many of our loyal customers will note that, for the first time in decades of growth, we have extended our lead times temporarily in order to manage the shortage situation. We ask that customers reach out to us with their scheduling needs when problems arise so that we can work together toward optimal results.
We are also experiencing price increases from our suppliers, commodity-based as well as capacity-based. Fluctuating price levels, combined with materials availability, is creating an uncertain atmosphere pertaining to the pricing of our products in the upcoming months and throughout the year. While we hope to avoid any long-term price increases, we will communicate with all of our customers when the need arises to discuss pricing for current and future orders.
As we move into the Spring season, we thank you very much for your business and your confidence in us. As always, we will continue to make every effort to align our priorities with yours.
We at UniControl Inc. are confident that, working together, we can put Covid-19 behind us in 2021, and advance toward a stronger, more secure future for everyone.