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Our US correspondent Robert Kravitz sits down with Marc Ferguson, International Business Development
Manager at Kaivac to talk about the growing emphasis on floorcare and floorcare cleaning systems.
It appears there is growing emphasis in the professional cleaning industry on floorcare. We saw this at the ISSA/INTERCLEAN North America® tradeshow in Chicago last year. As to why it is happening, there are likely many reasons.
Probably at the top of the list is the fact that, at least in North America and likely in Europe and other parts of the world, more facilities are installing hard surface floors instead of carpet. Hard surface floors tend to last longer, and even though there is some disagreement, many building managers believe their care is easier and less costly.
However, more hard surface floors mean that facilities must take extra steps to ensure walker safety. Slips, trips, and falls are far less likely to happen on a carpeted floor compared to a hard surface floor. And there is greater concern of spills on a hard floor, which can also result in an accident. For these reasons, at least one manufacturer has developed what they call ‘spill response’ floorcare equipment. It is specifically designed to clean up spills so that they do not result in a slip and fall accident.
To give us more insight into this trend, we turn to Marc Ferguson, who heads the international marketing team for Kaivac. As many cleaning professionals know, Kaivac developed the No-Touch Cleaning®
system,
which is used primarily for cleaning surfaces such as restroom fixtures, counters, tile and grout, and so on. However, in recent years, they – like other manufacturers – have put much more focus on floorcare with the introduction of the OmniFlex™ Crossover Cleaning system.
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In our interview, we asked Ferguson about this growing emphasis on floorcare equipment and specifically why Kaivac has also moved in this new direction.
Robert Kravitz (RK): Why the big
emphasis on floors? Marc Ferguson (MF): When it comes to hard surface floors, the two big concerns for cleaning professionals are the health and safety of building users and costs. We touch floors far more often than we realise. This includes direct touching of floors as well as indirect touching. For instance, every time we tie our shoes or pick up an item that has been left on the floor, we likely have indirect contact with the floor. If the floor has pathogens on it, they can now be on our hands; from our hands, they can now transfer to our face, our nose, mouth, and eyes. This is essentially cross-contamination and a big health concern.
As to costs, traditional floorcare is labour-intensive, no doubt about it, and labour costs are the most significant cost in professional cleaning. As wages go up, floorcare costs will become a more costly part of building operations.
RK: As to the health concerns, wouldn’t more frequent mopping and using disinfectants eradicate
most floor pathogens? MF: Actually, the opposite may be true. For instance, a study published in 2004, ‘Household Cleaning and Surface Disinfection: New Insights and Strategies’, in the Journal of Hospital Infection found that the spread of bacterial contamination in a hospital is often caused: “By the wet-mopping techniques in use… It was found that
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