Windsor is a leading manufacturer of innovative commercial grade cleaning equipment, offering a full line of commercial scrubbers, sweepers, vacuums, floor machines and more.
Does your scrubber have the funk of 40,000 years? In this week's Educational Quick Clip, Richard Bodo explains the basics of maintaining this essential piece of equipment. Tune in now at www.issa.com/quickclips.
It is said that all good things come in threes, the process of caring for hard floors not excluded.
Whether it’s cooking a breakfast frittata or renovating your kitchen, show hosts proudly display the final gorgeous product, assuring that you too can achieve that result if you follow their process.
Failure to follow the suggested steps — for example, adding the egg after baking the frittata or laying new floors atop the old tile — will likely result in a final product less desirable than that which you hoped.
Floor cleaning is no different; if you want to maintain clean and safe floors that look inviting to guests, you need to follow the proper steps in order to achieve the desired results.
The floor care trifecta — the three essential steps to any program regarding ongoing cleaning and maintenance — encompasses:
Neglecting to follow these essential steps will leave you with lackluster floors — those that are unfit for showcasing.
Why Doesn’t Cleaning Alone Work?
When a large national quick service restaurant chain headquartered in Southeast Texas began testing a new floor cleaning program, they knew they wanted a system that would provide clean and safe floors throughout their 230 locations.
The goal was to have floors that not only looked clean but stayed clean — and remained safe even after heavy use.
When testing a potential floor care program, they focused trials on 12-year-old flooring — large ceramic tile in dining areas and quarry tile in kitchen areas.
After mopping and cleaning the floors, testers identified the wet static coefficient of friction (WSCOF) on all floors using standards established by the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI); this established baseline measurements for the program.
Testers then deep cleaned the floors, measuring the WSCOF at the same location they measured previously and added a traction treatment application to help enhance floor safety.
The WSCOF was measured periodically over the course of the next three weeks to identify the overall condition of the floors.
Floors were only maintained during the course of this testing period; soiling was not prevented and the floors were not protected by a comprehensive matting system.
On the day of the benchmark test, testers found a substantial improvement in the overall traction of floors in the dining room areas — from .46 before deep cleaning to .60 after the deep cleaning.
In kitchen and food preparation areas, floor traction increased from .70 to .80 following deep cleaning.
And, after the application of the traction treatment, WSCOF in the dining and kitchen areas increased to .80 and .81, respectively.
Following the three-week trial, testers measured the WSCOF in the same areas.
Ann Nickolas is director of foodservice for Cintas, a leading provider of facility service solutions for restaurants. Cintas provides a comprehensive commercial drain line maintenance program that employs a patented formulation of live, environmentally-friendly microbes that target and degrade food waste, keeping drain lines clean and odor-free. For more information, please visit www.Cintas.com/Foodservice.
Originally Published by CMM Online
In business, as in life, one usually needs a plan in order to succeed — that has, at least, been the conclusion of some of the most famous thinkers in history.
For facility service providers (FSPs), planning can play a significant role in every aspect of our businesses, including selecting a vacuum cleaner.
But, unfortunately, many of us fail to plan ahead when selecting a vacuum, often making how much we are willing to pay for the machine the only consideration.
This can result in selecting a machine that does not meet our needs, does not perform as well as is necessary, is physically stressful to use and is less than healthy to operate.
Doing a little research and planning before purchasing a vacuum cleaner can prevent those issues — and will likely save a considerable amount of money as well.
First Things First
Those who have made a bad choice when selecting a vacuum cleaner can take consolation in the fact that it''s not easy to select a vacuum cleaner today.
There are numerous brands and models available, including backpacks, uprights, wide-area machines, walk-behinds, canisters, high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) and non HEPA-filtered machines, all of which come in a variety of models with scores of options.
It can indeed be a bit bewildering, which is why the first step when selecting a new machine should be to decide where and how the machine will be used.
For instance:
Richard Sanchez is a building service contractor (BSC) working in Northern California. He may be reached at Info@AlturaSolutions.com.
A comprehensive program should address the three pillars of sustainability.
It has captured the attention of building owners, visitors and occupants, all of whom see the benefits of cleaning programs that minimize the impact on human health and the environment.
To be effective, green cleaning programs require planning and attention.
This is why ISSA has included a Green Buildings component in its Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) called CIMS-GB.
CIMS-GB not only addresses the critical elements of a green cleaning program, including products, processes and performance; the Standard also is designed to fit neatly into an organization’s overall sustainability program.
This is because green cleaning is an integral element of sustainability.
Regardless of the type or size of the organization, having a comprehensive cleaning program that stems from its overall sustainability goals is essential to helping the organization meet them.
Defining Sustainability
The most widely cited and accepted definition for sustainability comes from the Brundtland Report in 1987: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainability has been further defined to include the “triple bottom line” or three pillars of sustainability: People, planet and profit.
Given the definition of sustainability, it is reasonable to expect that a comprehensive green cleaning program should encompass not only environmental considerations, but also social and economic considerations as well.
It is common for people to think that a green cleaning program primarily involves the use of environmentally preferable products, equipment and materials.
However, while the use of green products is imperative — and also required under CIMS-GB — a comprehensive program involves much more than products.
Dave Frank is a 30-year industry veteran and the president of the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences (AICS). AICS is the registrar for ISSA’s Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) certification program.
When creating a green cleaning program for your facility it is important to focus on the right processes, equipment, and chemicals. Windsor’s PDIR program is based on industry proven methods that achieve the best possible results at the lowest possible cost. Our program is green because it reduces chemical and equipment usage, it also saves money and will prolong the life of your floor. Constructing a program that focuses on preventative, daily, and interim maintenance allows you to reduce your dependence on costly time-intensive restorative cleaning. PDIR stands for Preventative, Daily, Interim, and Restorative cleaning processes. This issue focuses on the "P" for preventative cleaning, the rest will follow in future issues.
Why preventative cleaning?
The goal is to stop the soil before it enters your facility. By keeping soils outdoors, you will reduce the amount of cleaning needed indoors. Sweeping in front of your building can reduce the amount of soil tracked into the building up to 66%. Once dirt has entered the door, more expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive methods need to be followed to remove the dirt.
What is preventative cleaning?
If we could keep all soil outdoors, we would need little cleaning indoors. Try to implement a program of sweeping outside and entrance cleaning. Also spot cleaning in the entrance area or in highly frequented public areas will stop dirt from getting dragged farther into the building, thus keeping the clean appearance of your floors.
What equipment is required for
preventative cleaning?
For preventative cleaning, use sweepers and/or pressure washers for the outside as well as proper exterior and interior matting. Choosing the right matting system will immensely support your efforts to keep dirt from spreading. For interior entrance and spot cleaning, use electric brooms, battery sweepers, or a small spray-mop system for wet or sticky dirt. These machines are both small and low noise, so spot-cleaning during business hours does not bother people in your facility. From case to case, the use of detergents may be required with a high pressure washer; but in general preventative maintenance is very green, using little or no detergents.
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