Why mechanisation?

Basic cleaning is essential for personal health, hygiene and safety – be it at home, at work or any other place. Particularly at work, cleaning ensures the safety of employees’ health. Unclean surroundings infecting employees lead to absenteeism, manpower loss and ultimately affect the performance of the company, says Samit Sanyal, Head, Marketing (I&L), JohnsonDiversey.

“In terms of economics, cleaning enhances asset life. We spend heavily on laying expensive flooring like marble, wooden, granite, etc., and if we are not able to maintain it properly, it is a waste of money,” says Samit.

In ideal cleaning, mechanical action and chemical action can deliver 80% of the required efficiency. Mechanisation is thus crucial for cleaning. The floors itself, say wooden floors, require special cleaning which cannot be achieved through mop or a broom; it needs special machines. Similarly, granite or marble needs a certain amount of pressure and requires the crystallisation process of cleaning.

A time and motion study conducted by JohnsonDiversey shows that over a period of three years, investing in a scrubber drier proves much more economical than manual mopping of the floor. For cleaning of a 10 million sqft area, the cost of manual mopping worked out to be Rs1.20 per sqft and that of running a scrubber drier worth Rs10 lakhs was only Rs1.02 per sqft. There is a flat 15% cost efficiency.

“Mechanisation also increases sustainability. By using the right equipment of cleaning, we can get cleaner air. If I run a vacuum cleaner with HEPA filtration, it will throw out much cleaner air. Similarly, with the use of right maintenance regime with the right equipment, the life of the asset, say floors, is enhanced. Chemical, water consumption and carbon emission too get reduced.”

One major example of scientific cleaning which enhances the life of the product is carpet cleaning. Carpets in use “collect” dust, food particles, etc. Dust could be hard particles that cut carpet piles and food particles encourage bacterial growth resulting in stains and foul smell.

The scientific process of carpet care involves

– Daily dry vacuuming to collect loose soil

– Intermediate dry foam shampooing to remove fatty /oily soils

– Injection extraction to clean the interiors.

This is not manually possible.

Besides, mechanised cleaning creates a winning image, says Gilles Troff, Category Manager-Industrial Cleaning, Alfred Karcher GmbH & Co. KG. It can be summed up in the following points:

Keeping value

• Optical impression: Clean and inviting
• Goods remain clean
• Sustainability of facilities

Hygiene

• Reduces the development of micro-organisms and pathogenic germs
• Lower dust exposure (dust allergies)

Well being

• Cleanliness creates satisfaction
• Life value in the living space
• Better motivation for work

Simply stated manual cleaning involves low investment, low complexity, high expenditure of time, long drying time and requirement of maintenance cleaning outside of trading hour.

Mechanised cleaning involves low complexity in operation, easy operation, two-step-method for deep cleaning –  scrubbing and vacuuming, and high human-resource allocation.