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For­eign deploy­ment in times of the COVID 19 pandemic

Even in these difficult times, we are of course on the road for our customers at home and abroad. Depending on the destination, this requires good planning and compliance with various requirements.

Even in these dif­fi­cult times, we are of course on the road for our cus­tomers at home and abroad. Depend­ing on the des­ti­na­tion, this requires good plan­ning and com­pli­ance with var­i­ous require­ments. How­ev­er, the health of our employ­ees is always our top pri­or­i­ty dur­ing these assign­ments. In this arti­cle, we report on a for­eign assign­ment in Croa­t­ia as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of our busi­ness trips.

Before the trip start­ed, some orga­ni­za­tion­al points were clar­i­fied the week before. The doc­u­ments required for entry includ­ed the A1 cer­tifi­cate on social secu­ri­ty leg­is­la­tion, a trav­el noti­fi­ca­tion for entry into the Repub­lic of Croa­t­ia and a cer­tifi­cate issued by QA on the absolute neces­si­ty of a busi­ness trip. Fur­ther­more, proof of a neg­a­tive test for infec­tion with the coro­n­avirus must be car­ried when enter­ing Croa­t­ia and re-enter­ing Ger­many. In coop­er­a­tion with the cus­tomer in Croa­t­ia, an appoint­ment for an on-site PRC test was already orga­nized before the start of the trip.

With the QA com­pa­ny car and equipped with a sup­ply of FFP2 masks, we set off from Stol­berg in the direc­tion of south­ern Ger­many. First stopover: Frank­furt am Main. Here a PRC express test was car­ried out. Thanks to good orga­ni­za­tion on site and pri­or book­ing of an appoint­ment, the test was com­plet­ed in the short­est pos­si­ble time and the jour­ney could be con­tin­ued quick­ly. The test result arrived by email after only about 30 min­utes. The des­ti­na­tion for the first day was the city of Pas­sau in Bavaria. Due to the long total dis­tance of 1200km, a stopover was nec­es­sary. We delib­er­ate­ly decid­ed against an overnight stay in Aus­tria, as this would have result­ed in a 10-day quar­an­tine obligation.

Equipped with vignettes for Aus­tria and Slove­nia, we con­tin­ued the next day to the vicin­i­ty of the Croa­t­ian cap­i­tal Zagreb. On arrival at the customer’s site, work on the plant was start­ed imme­di­ate­ly and con­tin­ued suc­cess­ful­ly over the next few days.

In order to have a proof of a neg­a­tive PRC-Coro­na test for the return jour­ney to Ger­many, this was already car­ried out one day before depar­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal for Infec­tious Dis­eases in Zagreb. Our employ­ee was accom­pa­nied by the cus­tomer, as he is famil­iar with the local con­di­tions and orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­tures. The results were avail­able in time for the depar­ture and so we returned to Stol­berg with an overnight stay in Germany.