Growing up we were often told a clean house is a happy house. While most of us would consider this phrase rather cliché, there is considerable truth to the old adage in terms of industrial plant cleaning services.
Struggling to make the connection? Let’s clear things up a bit – starting with the primary issues.
3 PROBLEMS CAUSED BY LACK OF INDUSTRIAL CLEANING
Dirt, dust, and grime can truly wreak havoc inside of industrial facilities throughout virtually every area of your operations, including:
1) Product Defect Management
Quality assurance is an essential aspect to a your company’s operations. The obvious reason being that product defects don’t make customers very happy, leading to a poor brand reputation and, ultimately, lost revenue.
Assuring quality by managing product defects also offers internal advantages for your business, such as reducing waste material, limiting liability, and cutting costs.
Dirt and dust throughout your facility is a leading cause of product imperfections and quality loss.
2) Production Efficiency
From production lines of machinery to your facility’s HVAC system, efficiency is of vital importance in order to stay competitive in today’s industrial landscape. To quote another old adage, “time is money.”
The enemy of production efficiency? Particulate buildup.
Any amount of dust/dirt present throughout your production lines begin to lower their efficiency. Left undealt with, these particulates can interrupt or even disable equipment over time, while offering up plenty of additional problems as well.
3) Employee Health and Safety
The most significant and potentially costly issue related to industrial dirt and dust particles is human health and safety.
In previous articles, we’ve discussed the dangers posed by combustible dust. Dirt and dust particles can also pose a threat to human health in other ways.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
“Small particles less than 10 micrometers in diameter pose the greatest problems, because they can get deep into your lungs, and some may even get into your bloodstream.
Exposure to such particles can affect both your lungs and your heart. Numerous scientific studies have linked particle pollution exposure to a variety of problems, including:
- premature death in people with heart or lung disease
- nonfatal heart attacks
- irregular heartbeat
- aggravated asthma
- decreased lung function
- increased respiratory symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing or difficulty breathing.
People with heart or lung diseases, children, and older adults are the most likely to be affected by particle pollution exposure.”
Employees exposed to conditions with high levels of particulates day after day will undoubtedly develop symptoms, and when they do – your company may be held responsible for damages.
Not to mention, a dirty work environment also creates an unpleasant atmosphere that negatively impacts your team’s morale, which will result in negative outcomes for your business.
IMPROVING YOUR BOTTOM-LINE WITH ROUTINE INDUSTRIAL PLANT CLEANINGS
For more than a decade Great Lakes Power Vac (GLPV) has assisted industry-leading transportation manufacturers in maintaining the cleanliness of their facilities.
Our skilled team performs deep cleaning within factories from ceiling to the floor, followed by a white-glove test to ensure a satisfactory result.
Through these routine, periodic cleanings, manufacturers are able to maintain high product quality, displaying a direct correlation between their environmental cleaning commitments and the quality of products that are produced.
When periodic cleanings are put on hold, our customers have noted empirical evidence that product quality “tanked,” resulting in costly rework and increased scrap rates.
Dust counts in the paint lines of one such facility bore witness to this fact and emphasized the need to look carefully at total costs of production when assessing the value of industrial plant cleaning services rather than viewing it as a lower priority maintenance function.
NEED TO SCHEDULE A ROUTINE FACILITY CLEANING?
Beyond the savings gained through increased product quality, there are plenty of financial incentives to cleaning on a routine basis. Just like with your house, maintaining a clean industrial facility is much easier than trying to get one cleaned after it has been neglected.
One of our customers said it best:
“The initial burst takes a lot to get it where you want to be… [but] once you have a clean baseline level, it is much easier and less costly to keep it at that level.”
We await the opportunity to make your house cleaner, safer and better. If you would like to explore a routine maintenance program with GLPV, please give us a call at 800-822-4887 or request a quote online today.