EXPERT ADVICE STREAMLINING
CLEANING - ONE METRE AT A TIME
Whatever the scale of your organisation, the savings and benefits to be gained from modern, innovative cleaning methods are significant, says James White, Managing Director of Denis Rawlins Ltd.
A recent article in the cleaning trade press set me thinking about our industry and its significance, but also about the contribution we can all make, irrespective of the size of our own business.
The article was about the big boys in facilities management. The global scale of their operations is truly astounding. Each of the top five FM providers is responsible for thousands of employees. Millions of end customers use their buildings. They clean billions of square metres of floor space.
These mega-enterprises – like Sodexo and CBRE – are managing running costs that are colossal, whether it’s the wage bill for labour, the investment cost in machinery and equipment, or consumption of cleaning chemicals and materials.
So it should be no surprise that ‘cost per square metre’ is the lens their managers use to bring the performance of these complex operations into focus.
Just think what shaving a penny or two off that unit cost could do to the profitability of these organisations. Take ISS for example, which cleans 30 billion square metres each year. A penny saving on its per- metre cleaning costs would add £300million to the bottom line.
That sounds great, you say, but how feasible is it to cut the unit cost in practice? Well, let’s look at the benchmark costs calculated by the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc).
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Based on BICSc cleaning standards specifications, the labour costs alone of cleaning a washroom is calculated at 11p per square metre, compared with 4p/m2 for corridors and 3p/m2 for office areas. This is assuming labour costs of £10 per hour.
It’s also important to remember here is that these figures allow for fairly old- fashioned cleaning methods, including mopping, which – despite our Chop the Mop campaign – is still widely employed in buildings across the UK.
So we believe the scope for reducing cleaning costs (and improving standards of cleanliness) is significant.
The BICSc benchmark cost for washrooms is based on output of 93m2/hour. We have tested and supply a no-touch cleaning system that dramatically increases productivity compared with conventional cleaning methods. It sprays cleaning solution on toilet floors and fixtures, including urinals, and suctions away the contaminated run-off, leaving dry and hygienically clean surfaces.
Overall cleaning time is 50-75% quicker. While cleaning a restroom fixture is normally estimated to take three minutes on average, this system can reduce that to one minute. What’s more, studies show no-touch cleaning is 60 times more efficient at removing bacteria from surfaces and grout lines in tiled floors than flat mops. In many situations, the system can even deliver sufficiently high standards of cleanliness without recourse to chemicals.
There are also innovative, yet low- cost options for more general floor cleaning. One system matches the
cleaning effectiveness of a standard scrubber dryer, and can outdo it for productivity, at a fraction of the cost. Again it involves dispensing clean solution and vacuuming to a separate recovery tank. This is 3-4 times faster than mopping, with no need for pre-sweeping and dry mopping afterwards. We reckon – based on the BICSc benchmark – it slashes the 4p/m2 unit cost to less than 2p/m2. This does not take account of other savings, such as consumables like mop heads and buckets, or calibrating the use of cleaning solutions.
So, taking these two examples, that 1p/m2 saving is by no means far- fetched, and the economies available are considerable.
That’s not to say that the global workforces of the big five FM giants are exclusively wielding mops. But our experience shows that cleaning contractors and in-house teams across a wide variety of premises are still using outdated methods. And where cleaning is mechanised there are often more cost-effective and economical cleaning options that would provide a faster return on investment.
Modern methods judged on their cost- effectiveness, return on investment and scientifically measured cleaning results are the best way to bring down cleaning costs.
Whether you’re a global or local player, by embracing innovation you can – with every square metre – make what will prove to be significant gains in terms of cost efficiency, cleanliness and environmental impact.
www.rawlins.co.uk twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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