Fastenal Is One Company That Got Pandemic Planning Right

As a distributor of factory-floor basics, Fastenal Co.’s earnings are typically a reasonable guide of what's to come when its manufacturing customers report results a few weeks later, and that should hold even in the coronavirus era. But listening to the company’s conference call on Tuesday to discuss its first-quarter results, I was struck by a different kind of roadmap: In step-by-step fashion, CEO Dan Florness laid out Fastenal's response to the coronavirus crisis, offering a case study on best practices when preparing for the disruptions of a pandemic.

Fastenal is little known outside of industrial circles, but it's essentially in the business of supply-chain management, and it acted on the warning signs of the coronavirus crisis much faster than the federal government. That's partly a reflection of the nature of Fastenal's supply chain, which is weighted heavily toward Asia, the first frontier of the outbreak. Way back in January, as the spread of the virus forced China into lockdown, Fastenal began monitoring certain product lines to ensure a reliable flow of goods for its customers, Florness said Tuesday as he kicked off the earnings conversation. This is around the time that an array of top government officials began warning of the risks the coronavirus posed to the U.S., even as President Donald Trump publicly downplayed the threat and the prospect of upheaval to Americans’ daily lives, according to a detailed report from the New York Times.