“During the recent past, many multinationals who are investing in establishing their manufacturing base and operations in India, have voiced the need for high international standards of hygiene and this can be achieved by mechanised cleaning,” adds Sreejith Chandran, National Sales Manager Key Accounts, Roots Multiclean Ltd.
The modern auto plant faces a lot of challenges in maintaining the desired high standards of sanitation and hygiene. The challenge starts from the main gate and it extends to the roads, assembly shop, engine shop, paint booth, welding area, warehouse, test track, canteens, R&D, offices, canteens, common areas and washrooms.
The major consumption of cleaning equipment in this industry includes scrubber driers, ride-on scrubber driers, walk-behind scrubbers, vacuum cleaners, sweepers and high pressure jets. Most of the facilities including Toyota Bangalore, Hyundai Chennai, Volkswagen & its subsidiary Gestamp in Pune, JCB, Yamaha, Hero Honda, Tata Motors, Birla Tyres, Maruti, Bosch, Toyota Kirloskar, TVS Motors, etc., are using cleaning equipment supplied by Forbes Pro-Eureka Forbes and Roots Multiclean Ltd.
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– Puneet Mishra
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“Sweepers are mainly being used for external cleaning of roads. The use of either walk behind or the ride on suction sweeper depends on the length of the roads. Ride on scrubber driers are used for maintaining the shopfloors, the open spaces and gang ways. In areas of space constraint, walk behind does the job.
“Walk behind or ride on sweepers are also used for cleaning warehouses and test tracks, canteens and R&D facilities. Paint shops have also installed centralised vacuum system,” explained Sreejith.
“The applications of industrial cleaning machines could be for varied purposes like collection of chips or oil or dust. Toyota has installed cleaning systems to treat specific dust producing areas. The online suction system has high vacuum and low air flow capacity. This is unlike the usual practice of using high air flow and low vacuum for collection of dust that fly and settle everywhere. In the online system, light particles of dust are arrested in air like pollution control devices using high vacuum and low air flow,” said Puneet Mishra.
Floor cleaning
Most machines procured in this industry relate to maintenance of different kinds of floors. In fact, in most automobile/automotive units, the flooring is mostly concrete or cemented Koba as it is locally called, said Sdanand Shinde, Managing Director, GlossOn Surface Solutions Pvt Ltd, specialists in surface treatment and polishing.
“Due to regular wear & tear, such floors tend to crack fast, as they are seldom cured and even if they are, it can crack when something heavy falls on them. This is mainly because the curing process involving regular cement and sand mixed together to fix a patch, is a temporary solution.
“The proven method, although expensive, involves firstly the grinding of the used floor with coarse diamond abrasives. This opens the entire pores of the concrete floor and the beton hardener applied on it enters the pores, fills them up. This strengthens the flooring, making it resistant to oil spill stains and other weathering agents. A stainer can be added for giving aesthetic value to the floor and can be coloured too. Further, grinding the floor with diamond coated resin abrasives enriches the finish to the optimum level of mirror shine or matt as required. The final result is a floor much stronger, beautiful and maintainable.”
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From the earlier days, walk behind scrubber driers have been deployed. But in the automobile industry, battery operated machines should be encouraged.
– Sreejith Chandran
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These processes can be done on heavy duty big floor grinding machines. Such machine applications are useful in the automobile industry, particularly for showroom floors where a strong floor is required to take the heavy load of stationery vehicles.
“It has been observed that these days, car showrooms are using vitrified tiles for flooring but such floors invariably tend to get scratched or cracked easily. Granite and marble floors could get slippery or stained and can get scratched easily. Added to poor maintenance practices, these floors can hold footmarks in cases of heavy traffic,” Sdanand Shinde said.
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Need for mechanisation
“With the new CNC machines, the spillage has comparatively come down drastically. Besides the flooring then was cemented or concrete and now it is all epoxy.” Apart from epoxy floors, Bosch has also replaced concrete with megapoxy floors.
“Fuel injection pumps, delivery valves, common rail injectors, etc., are being manufactured in the Bangalore corporate plant. We have one more plant in Bangalore and four other plants across India. With the new flooring, maintenance has become much better as soiling of floors has considerably reduced. Yet, we need a lot of manpower to maintain these floors and hence have outsourced housekeeping to a local contractor, G. Balasubramanium and Company, that has been maintaining the premises for over 20 years now,” said Reddy.
The plant spread over 76 acres of land, has a workshop area of 13 lakh sqft. “The existing manpower is being used for better maintenance with mechanised cleaning equipment. We are using the indigenised Roots machines and also have a couple of machines of Hako, Germany. The main cleaning equipment being used round the clock is the scrubber drier. The cleaning at the workshop is done during the first shift from 6am to 2pm when all the cleaning machines are deployed to cover the vast area. The machines include 26 of the small Hakomatic Re43 scrubber driers and 11 machines of Hako’s bigger version CL65 and B90.
“Apart from these we also have vacuum cleaners and carpet cleaning machines which are used for carpeted area in the offices.”
Vacuum cleaners are also deployed for cleaning window grills, partitions and other areas. Bosch also has cleanrooms for the assembly line. “Our staff do swab test of the cleanrooms on a daily basis and if the ppm varies, the housekeeping is directly held responsible. This area is completely cleaned using vacuum cleaner in the mornings,” added Reddy.
The most challenging in floor maintenance is the production area which is always bustling with activity. “There are a lot of machines in operation at the workshop. Even as the production is on, maintenance and also preventive maintenance is conducted on some of the machines, parts changed in the production systems, mechanical maintenance in case of pipe leakages or pipe burst, changing of oil, feeding coolants & emulsions during the operation… all resulting in spillage. Due to environmental issues, we have emphasised that oil spillage will be first vacuum cleaned before it is mopped using a cotton mop. Owing to the dust and the kind of oil spillage, reusing of sophisticated mops does not help.”
Apart from mechanised cleaning, manual cleaning with hand mops is also being engaged to clean difficult-to-access areas between machines. “This way the cleaning activity can be done using less number of manpower and the fatigue involved in cleaning is also reduced,” he added.
While, high pressure washers could be an ideal solution in paint shops, “we find that it is not conducive for our operations. We had introduced high pressures for our washrooms but found that the spray & mist generated during the washing left the cleaner completely wet. We cannot use high pressures in the workshop as the mist in the air could affect the production quality. There is always possibility of the water droplets settling on the machines and leading to corrosion,” explained Reddy. Cleaning in the paint booth can be best done with a high pressure jet. “The Honda Siel facility in Gurgaon is using an ultra high pressure water jet of Forbes Pro for the paint shop,” added Puneet Mishra.
Toilets as such are being manually cleaned using scrubbers and mops. At present, this premise has 143 toilets which are being maintained by Best Practice Washrooms Pvt Ltd. “Initially, we had just about 40 or so toilets but with more buildings and increase in women staff, more toilets were introduced. “We have not found any appropriate mechanised cleaning solutions for our toilets so far,” said Reddy.
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We cannot use high pressures in the workshop as the mist in the air could affect the production quality. There is always possibility of the water droplets settling on the machines and leading to corrosion.
– Bhaskara Reddy CV
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For external cleaning at present, Bosch has deployed manual flipper. “Given the vast area for cleaning, we are considering purchasing ride-on scrubber this year.”
Facility Maintenance
Nippon Towers, state-of-the-art showroom of Toyota in Kochi, is claimed to be the world’s largest, equipped with facilities much better than any other showroom in the world. Some of the main areas where mechanised cleaning has been deployed include the washing area, lobby, visitor area, lounges, showroom and the main workshop.
“In general any workshop faces spillage problems besides tyre marks left behind on the floor by cars coming in with road debris,” said Sreejith Chandran of Roots Multiclean, who has supplied equipment for maintenance of this facility.
The Hakomatic D750R battery operated ride on scrubber has been deployed to treat such floors at the showroom. Three walk behind scrubber drier support the D750R in places where it cannot reach. These machines are equipped with silicon carbide brushes for better abrasive affect and better scrubbing. The vacuum cleaners help clean the upholstery and car interiors. These vacuums come with induction motors which enable them to work continuously for hours. The other machines provided by Roots include flipper machines for sweeping the outside area and the regular janitorial tools like double bucket, etc.
“From the earlier days, walk behind scrubber driers have been deployed. But in the automobile industry, battery operated machines should be encouraged. The cable can always be a hindrance given the vast area and excessive movement, especially in the assembly & main workshop. Working on a battery operated machine is more efficient, productive and time saving, as the machine moves at a speed of four to five km per hour.”
Particular about cleaning standards, Nippon Towers has outsourced the facility management to Marg Facility Management Pvt Ltd, the facility wing of Marg Hotels & Resorts. As part of the facility management, Marg provides housekeeping services, maintenance, security, some front office services and also provides food services in a very limited way. “In short, everything other than the façade cleaning is done by us,” said Vijay Cheriyan, Managing Director of Marg Hotels & Resorts. The Nippon Towers is a 10-storey building out of which seven floors have already been commissioned — two floors of fully air-conditioned car servicing area, a floor with five paint booths, one floor meant for repairing and denting, one floor for inspection of new cars sold through them (they are claimed to be one of the biggest dealers for Toyota in India), the fourth floor has the sales office and the fifth floor is the corporate office which is made up of leather floors. “Maintaining leather floors in the high humid conditions of Kerala is a big challenge. We have bought specially made German polishes which are manually rubbed on the leather floor using cotton cloth,” said Cheriyan.
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– Vijay Cheriyan
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The design of the showroom not only has glass facades but also has glass flooring and passageways which are sturdy. “We do a regular cleaning with the walk behind scrubber and there is not much cleaning as these floors are mainly located in the office areas. Yes, we are facing a problem with the side glass walls due to heavy rains and lot of dirt that comes in. The major cleaning in this building includes the large glass windows and the high atrium which is a combination of glass and mirror. The only way to access the atrium is through scaffolding.”
The service area being vast, larger machines are being deployed. More than 200 vehicles are likely to come in for servicing to this showroom. “As per the standards laid down, no dirt should be left anywhere after the car enters the premises. Hence, the cleaning is an ongoing process. There are two people working on each floor, besides four more to manage other areas.” The showroom also has an extensive ramp as the cars can go up to the seventh floor.
The paint booths are equipped with the modern spraying systems and the paint does not spread to the surrounding areas. Regular cleaning is done by mopping the area and if there is any paint residue, it is removed using a thinner. There is usually no spillage and even if there is, it is recovered through a process.
At present, 18 staff with three supervisors and one manager, are managing the facility “in five-star hotel” conditions as specified by the client. Marg has recently entered into FM services and is also servicing the cleanrooms of Bourn Hall clinic, which is planning to open 25 IVF centres across India. Marg is maintaining three of the IVF centres of Bourn Hall as of now. Besides, it is also maintaining all of the Marg Hotels & Resorts.
Clean Profits
Not just the manufacturing units, even the service and fuel filling stations are adopting mechanised cleaning. The number of petrol filling stations or petrol bunks as is popularly known in India has shot up with figures crossing 36,000 as per a survey done in 2009. The increased infrastructure development in the last two years has also prompted the need for having filling stations close to prime locations like malls, multiplexes, hotels, highways and other places where there is more traffic. In the race to attract more vehicles, petrol stations and workshops have taken the clean way by installing automated and mechanised cleaning systems.
“Earlier, the workshops owners were investing only in vacuum cleaners to be able to earn additional revenue by offering car cleaning services. Subsequently, they have graduated to buying industrial vacuum cleaners and upholstery cleaning machines. But the overall housekeeping of the workshop was never so much of a concern. There were a few high pressure water pumps attached to the pipes to clean the exterior of the cars. But today, changes are slowly coming in.
“The presence of a scrubber drier in a workshop adds to its image as a clean place. Workshops are keen to present an environment akin to that of a showroom,” said Puneet Mishra.
Inventa Cleantech Pvt Ltd has installed the automatic car washing systems in filling stations and workshops recently.
It is only last year that a filling station on a highway in Jalandhar installed the car wash system and “since then this place has become the most sought after filling station,” said Proprietor Anup Tiwari. “The sales have gone up too. It has become more convenient for people to have their car wash done while stopping to get fuel. Now we are receiving all kinds of cars for washing at the filling station. In Jalandhar, we are the only filling station which has this equipment.”
This novel concept is slowly catching up, mainly because people do not have to wait for their next service to get their car washed. The downtime of getting a car washed is reduced to 20 minutes unlike in a workshop one has to take prior appointment and leave the car behind.
Installing the car wash in a filling station has not been all that difficult for Tiwari. “I had a large room space and it was easy for me to covert it for the car wash system. Initially, we did have some teething problem with the system due to power fluctuation, which has now been rectified. Since, we already had proper water connection, it has been easy for us to meet the requirement of 40-50 litres per car wash,” he explained.
The flow of vehicles for wash is seasonal, says Tiwari. “Winter is the peak season with around 25-30 cars coming in each day. Monsoon is usually a lean period.
During the wash process, the car is shampooed and washed thoroughly. “In case of stubborn dirt, we have to remove it manually. We use car shampoo of Sandal Enterprises and use a microfibre cloth to dry the car after the wash. Shortly, we have also procured a compounding and lamination machine for polishing of cars.”
While the cars are getting washed, customers get treated at a well-equipped waiting lounge where Tiwari has made arrangement for people to watch TV or read newspapers & magazines and also buy some refreshments. Sutlej Filling Station is located on the highway at G.T. Road in Jalandhar.
Automatic car wash system in workshops / service stations has made life simpler, said Jitendra Shah, Director of Jitendra Motors Pvt Ltd, Nashik.
“In the last four months, since the car washing plant has been installed in the service station, the income has more than doubled. “Moreover, my biggest problem in the last 14 years has been getting stable labourers. Now, with the new washing system, I need just two of them, which is a big relief,” said Sandeep S Borse, Customer Care Head.
The actual workload of washing a car has also reduced considerably. “In the manual system, four of them had to lift the car on the jack and then use spray jets to clean the car. What took us 45 minutes is now getting done in less than 20 minutes. The productivity has increased to 35 from 14 vehicles. Besides, servicing the car, when the customer receives his vehicle well washed and perfectly cleaned the entire perception changes. In manual cleaning, there were always chances of the car not getting cleaned completely. Certain areas that are difficult to access would be left unclean,” explained Borse. Jitendra Motors are the authorized service station of Chevrolet, Hero Honda, Volkswagen, Mahindra &Mahindra.
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– Jitendra Shah
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The system, being more systematic, also ensures that the surrounding area in the workshop does not get stained. “In the new automatic system, the car is mounted on a forklift and the oil gets dispensed into a collection tank. The work is more hygienic and there is no spillage as such. We also have bought Inventa’s manual scrubbers to keep the outside area clean.” About eight of them are doing the cleaning job at the workshop.
“Cleanliness makes a lot of difference,” added Jitendra Shah.
“While mechanised housekeeping has largely been accepted and everybody understands the need for machines. Today, the major area of discussion is the right combination of machines. If you have an area of 10,000sqm that needs to be cleaned in two hours then the machines should have a capacity of 5000sqm an hour. There is no point of investing in a machine with a capacity of 2000sqm an hour and expect it to the job in two hours! These are issues that surface today,” concludes Puneet Mishra.