As Summer 2021 arrives, 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.
We continue to 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 strenuously comply with all Federal, CDC, state, and local guidelines. All that being said, we, like many other businesses, are experiencing capacity constraints caused by labor shortages. We are uncertain about the timing of our capacity increase initiatives, but we will strive to increase our output as labor shortages subside.
Currently, many of our suppliers are also experiencing worsening 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 our customers reach out to us with their scheduling needs when problems arise so that we can work together toward optimal results.
Fluctuating prices and materials availability are causing uncertainty with respect to our product pricing throughout the remainder of the year. We are experiencing both commodity- and capacity-based price increases from our suppliers, and have been forced to implement price increases to adjust to the rising cost situation. In most cases, supplier price increases to us have been effective immediately upon notice. Accordingly, we have had no choice but to make price increases to our customers effective immediately upon notice, or shortly thereafter. Please be assured that as the need arises we will continue to communicate with all of our customers to discuss pricing for current and future orders.
As we move through the Summer 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.
At UniControl Inc. we are confident that, working together, we can overcome these many challenges during 2021, and advance toward a stronger, more secure future for everyone.