WASHROOM FLUSHED WITH SUCCESS
Paul Mulready, Marketing Manager, Northwood Hygiene Products Ltd explains how they solved a messy washroom problem for an international company.
Old pipework, increased washroom usage and slow degradation can lead to expensive blockages. This can be a massive inconvenience, especially when your company is a leading plastic injection moulding and tools manufacturer.
For larger companies, there are thousands of things that need attending to and yet the one that most frequently comes up; the toilets are blocked.
RGE Group, a family-owned business with 45 years of experience in their sector, is headquartered in Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire. There are three other UK sites including one at Whittlesey, and others around the world. Both Godmanchester and Whittlesey sites have around 150 staff, and their washroom provisions were suffering from repeated blockages. Due to the possible health and safety issues with this, as well as the sheer inconvenience for the work force, the blockages had to be dealt with as quickly as possible. This involved calling in specialist drain clearing companies at a considerable cost; the frequency of such incidents was beginning to average two call-outs a month.
Clearly the situation needed to be redressed. Rather than look for a piecemeal solution, Purchasing Administrator Mark Holgate decided to take a more holistic view with the objective of sorting the problem once
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and for all, as quickly and effectively as possible. His review showed that they were being supplied by multiple companies, none of whose various proposals had succeeded in alleviating the problem.
“IT ACHIEVED A
15% REDUCTION IN WASTAGE
TOGETHER WITH THE SAVINGS OF SOME £500 PER MONTH.”
It was then he was contacted by Bay West and together they sat down to address the key problems. Firstly, it was decided that the washroom provision would be standardised to create an attractive, clean, safe environment that encouraged reduced wastage and greater levels of tidiness. Secondly, it was recognised that the blockages were the result of a combination of
old pipework, increased usage, and the fact that the toilet paper had emulsified and degraded too slowly.
It was decided that they would trial Bay West dispensing systems stocked with flushable 616 tissue; characterised by its ability to biodegrade in 19 seconds. The environmental
credentials of Northwood Hygiene mirrored the desire of RGE to minimise pollution through their adoption of lean manufacturing techniques, so hopes were high that this combination of dispensing system and tissue would succeed where others had failed.
The results were both immediate and remarkable. As predicted, the washrooms were left much cleaner and tidier than before, reducing the time required to maintain hygiene and presentation standards and subsequently the blockages were none-existent.
Since their installation in 2013, there has been no need to employ specialist drain clearing companies. With a measured 15% reduction in wastage together with the savings of some £500 per month on the no longer needed drain clearing, the cost in use improvement has been dramatic, more than covering the initial higher cost of this highly effective 616 tissue.
Mark said: “We are absolutely thrilled with the outcome. Job done! Thank you Bay West.”
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