The Best Cleaning Practices in Modern Warehousing

WAREHOUSE CLEANING EQUIPMENT

The Best Cleaning Practices In A Modern Day Warehouse.

In most UK warehouses and distribution centres, over 80% of the materials found on the floors are dry. Debris and fine dust accumulate causing problems, damaging equipment and the floors themselves creating a dirty unsafe environment for both employees and site visitors. Not only that, a dirty warehouse has a bad effect on the company image, leads to low staff morale and negatively impacts warehousing efficiency. 

Bad warehouse cleaning practices create poor air quality and airborne dust generation at standard height and at high levels, leading to poor light conditions and fire hazards, more fuelling the safety risks to health.

Warehouse managers and facility managers in particular put a lot of time and effort into ensuring their materials handling equipment, conveyors and other machinery vital to warehouse efficiency all run smoothly. 

Due to their very nature, most warehouses are very busy environments with a never ending supply of high traffic, with forklifts, order pickers, reach truck and staff working shift after shift to meet the demands of the business. This makes keeping any warehouse clean a challenging task, whatever the size of the operation. Each and every warehouse operates slightly different, therefore, it's never a one size fits all in terms of equipment, but working to a system and process can make the challenge of keeping a warehouse clean and safe much easier and certainly more productive and efficient. 

What are the best practices to create and maintain a clean, safe and healthy warehouse?

With every warehouse facility being unique, the types of materials present on the floors vary from site to site, depending on many factors. 

The best methods to creating a clean safe workplace are to adopt to a 3 step process 

1. Litter Pick 2. Sweep & Vac 3. Scrub & Dry

1. Litter Pick

To keep your warehouse floors clean, the first consideration is to deal with the biggest problems, dry dust and debris. Debris such as shrink wrap and banding should be collected manually and disposed via cleaning stations, with recycling bins located strategically throughout the warehouse to reduce the time of picking up this type of litter. 

2. Sweep & Vac

Debris and fine dust present on the floors can be very abrasive depending on the type of application, so the best way of removal is to use an industrial sweeper with a vacuum control system. Industrial sweepers are designed to collect bulky and light debris and vacuum and filter fine dust leaving floors debris and dust free, ready for wet scrubbing.

3. Scrub & Dry

Once the floors are free of dust and debris, floors are ready to wet scrub and dry to remove light and heavy soiling, such as fork lift tyre marks, spill stains, oils and grease. A floor scrubber dryer deposits a mixture of water and cleaning detergent down though the scrubbing brushes onto the floor. The scrubbing action of the scrubbing brushes and cleaning solution remove marks from the floors. The vacuum system consists of a powerful vacuum motor, sucking up the dirty solution via a curved squeegee deposited into the dirty water tanks leaving floors clean and instantly dry in a single motion, to leave a clean, safe dry floor surface.

How to select the right equipment for the job?

Several factors are involved in choosing the right cleaning equipment for the different types of cleaning carried out in a typical warehousing facility.

Before choosing the best cleaning equipment for the job, consider the total cost of cleaning the facility, and the different elements associated with the cleaning tasks to determine a total cleaning budget. It provides a foundation to keep control of budgeting and maintain efficiency in the cleaning operation throughout the year.

The key elements to consider within your budget are;

Labour Costs - Number of staff X Time & Frequency of Cleaning, Holiday Pay, PAYE Contributions

Equipment Costs - Rental Cost, Maintenance Cost, Wear & Tear Parts, Write down allowances (Purchases), 

Consumable Costs - Cleaning Detergents, Cloths, Mops, Buckets, Bin Bags, Brooms, Bins, Floor Pads.

Companies should adopt an efficient floor maintenance program into their daily duties to keep their product stock clean. Dust and soil build up every time a door opens, and in modern warehousing, products should be going out the door clean. No one wants to spend excessive hours and labour cleaning dirty products before shipping; it is counterproductive and expensive.

Warehouse managers must decide on the overall appearance of their floors to determine how best to maintain these standards.

Level of Cleanliness (Desired results)

How to maintain a clean warehouse is down to individual preference or a requirement to meet specific compliance. For example, do you have plenty of prospective clients and visitors coming to the site? Are you handling sensitive products that need to be kept clean? Are there zones of the site subjective to spills that require more maintenance? Do you have issues with oil leaks from machinery that require special cleaning measures? 

With over 20 years of experience working with warehousing and distribution companies, we have seen some of the best-kept facilities, and some so dirty, you don't know how they survive.

Cleaning Methods

So with a clear understanding of the level of cleanliness expected, developing the right maintenance program is simple.

SWEEPING (DRY METHOD)

As mentioned earlier, over 80% of the material present on the floors are dry. For example, loose pallet chips, plastic shavings, fine dust are typical in most warehouses. Therefore, a maintenance program that includes regular sweeping to remove light and bulky debris and control fine dust is a very cost-effective method of keeping housekeeping standards high.

Lowering debris and dust levels has a significant positive impact on warehousing efficiency, fewer forklift truck repairs caused by dust ingression and damage caused by floor debris, cleaner products, better lighting, and happier staff working in a cleaner environment contribute to a better workplace. In addition, sweeping using an industrial vacuum sweeper is super efficient, covering large areas of floor space much faster than manual sweeping methods with dust control.

SCRUBBING & DRYING FLOORS (WET METHOD)

When there's a requirement for higher floor and hygiene standards, use a scrubber dryer to effectively wet scrub and dry the floors. Scrubber dryers effectively remove liquid spills, tyre marks, ingrained soiling and other impediments on the floor surface. There are many types of scrubber dryers available depending on the floor surface, levels of loose debris present, and types of soiling. The correct choice of scrubber dryer should be capable of cleaning the surface, leaving it safe and dry in a single pass. In addition, floors should be immediately dry after cleaning the surface to eliminate slip and fall hazards.

5 STEPS TO CHOOSING THE BEST CLEANING EQUIPMENT FOR A CLEAN, SAFE AND EFFICIENT WAREHOUSE

1. Always go for the highest productivity possible to get the job done in the least possible time. Whether it is purchased or hired, the price of the equipment is essential. Still, it should be governed by productivity first, as you will soon see when calculating your total cost of cleaning later. (TCC)

2. Conduct a detailed site survey with a professional cleaning equipment expert to assess your needs and requirements correctly. Choosing the best cleaning methods to sweep, scrub or both, the type and condition of floor surface, the total floor area size, and the levels of debris and soiling present are the benchmarks for the correct machine selection. 

3. Ease of use and operator safety is essential, and discussing specific features on the equipment during the buying process can contribute to better performance and enhanced safety. Training staff is part of the process. Keeping equipment simple to operate and clean after use will promote better reliability and machine uptime and help lower maintenance costs.

4. Total Cost Of Cleaning Analysis (TCC). 

In so many cases over the years, we have seen cleaning equipment bought purely on the purchase price or monthly rental cost alone. However, acquiring cleaning equipment is only a part of the cost of a facility's total cleaning budget. So selecting the right cleaning equipment can significantly lower your overall cleaning budget. Let's look at an example and break down all associated costs.

Cost analysis Example

ACME WAREHOUSING INC.

Warehouse Size :(Sq/m) 5,000

Floor Surface: Smooth Concrete 

Racking Aisle Width: 2.3 M

Debris Present: Light Dry Materials. 

Dust Levels: Medium Levels

Soiling Present: None

Walkways Width: 1.5M

Cleaning Frequency: Once, daily

Number of Staff: 1

Equipment: 1 x Sweeper

Cleaning Method

Sweep all areas of the warehouse and walkways, Monday-Friday ( 5 x cleans per week)

Labour Rate (Hourly)- £11.50

Option 1

Sweeping - Small Walk-Behind Battery Powered Sweeper 

Rental Cost Per Week: (£50.00) Inc Maintenance

Cleaning Rate/Hr: 2,500 (sq/M)

Total Sweep time: 10 Hours (week)

Labour (@2 Hrs/Day) £115.00

Total Sweeping Cost: £165.00 per week (Walk Behind Sweeper)

Option 2

Sweeping - Medium-Sized Walk-Behind Battery Powered Sweeper

Rental Cost Per Week: (£90.00) Inc Maintenance

Cleaning Rate/Hr: 5,000 (sq/m)

Total Sweep time 5 Hours (week)

Labour (1 hr/Day) £57.50

Total Sweeping Cost: £147.50 per week ( Medium Sized Ride On Sweeper)

In this simple example, you can see that choosing a ride-on sweeper against a less expensive walk-behind machine reduces the total cost to keep a 5,000 square meter facility clean.

You save £17.50 a week/, £910.00 yearly, or £2,730 over a typical three-year rental period.

Applying the same calculation principles to wet scrubbing and drying gives you the ability to choose the right cleaning program for your warehouse, whatever the size and in every part of it.

Your floor maintenance program should work seamlessly within your daily operation, even in busy periods such as seasonal events or when those large orders arrive. However, these events should never take away the responsibility to keep your facilities clean and safe. 

We often see on local news feeds a takeaway restaurant receiving a 1-star hygiene kitchen standard. Guess what! We don't order food from them again, which has a massively detrimental effect on their company image, not to mention their bottom line. 

A kind message to all warehouse managers out there, take a look at your warehouse and ask yourself what star hygiene rating would you tag to your warehouse? What would a customer or prospective client give you? 

If you want to discuss your floor maintenance program with us, please give us a call on 01942 466258, or visit us online; www.northwestcleaningequipment.co.uk.