Cleaning Machine: Setting a New Touchless-Cleaning Standard

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All companies in any type of service industry work hard to develop and design systems that meet the needs of their customers and, by extension, the general public. Much time, effort and money is spent determining the best way to get something done. Sure, the systems that are developed are good at delivering what they promise—at times very good—but there’s always one question that remains: Are they good enough?

In 1955, Eddie and Thelma Sizemore founded the Georgia Merchant Police Association in Augusta, GA, a company that would grow into Sizemore, Inc., which would become recognized as one of the largest security corporations in the southeastern United States. Over the years, Sizemore, Inc., has continued to grow and is now a nationally recognized service-contracting company with three distinct divisions: Sizemore Security International, Sizemore Staffing Services and Sizemore Janitorial Services.

Founded in 1991, Sizemore Janitorial Services provides janitorial services for many of the country’s leading corporations, with a full range of cleaning services offered, including general building cleaning, consulting services, one-time cleaning, floor care and special-events cleaning. In building its business and reputation, Sizemore Janitorial Services has become known as a provider of exceptional cleaning services to all of its customers.

Over the years, the methods of facility cleaning, especially in the restrooms, as well as the actual definition of what “clean” is, have evolved. More and more, building service contractors (BSC) are relying less and less on traditional cleaning methods that involve a custodial staff using a spray bottle and cloth, or a mop and bucket to perform the critical task of facility cleaning. These traditional methods began to fall out of favor for a number of reasons, among them: poor productivity, physical strain on the cleaning staff; an increased emphasis on the use of “green” cleaning regimens; and, above all, the realization that the old ways just weren’t getting the facilities clean enough.

Being a progressive company, in 2005 Sizemore became one of the first BSCs to experiment with the use touch-free cleaning machines—ones that take the mop and bucket out of the cleaning equation—in some of its customers’ facilities. These machines exhibit many advantages over hands-on cleaning, but after a while, that nagging question surfaced again: The technology is good, but is it good enough?

The Next Level
For Preston Sizemore Jr., CEO of Sizemore Janitorial Services and, as the grandson of Eddie and Thelma Sizemore, part of the family’s third generation to participate in the operation of the company, the answer was, “Not quite.”

“We looked at a number of options, and we decided we wanted a non-proprietary touch-free restroom-cleaning system,” explained Sizemore. “We certainly understood the competition with the big vacuums, and we had had some success with those, but not from a daily cleaning standpoint. We wanted something to help with the daily cleaning of restrooms, not necessarily the restoration of restrooms.”

Sizemore’s search led him to Cincinnati-based Hydro Systems Co., and its ICS 8900 Mobile Cleaning Unit, a battery-powered touchless cleaning system that uses low-flow/low-pressure technology with properly diluted chemicals to give restrooms a floor-to-ceiling clean in a fraction of the time it would take to do it by hand. In addition, the low amount of water needed with the ICS eliminates the need to vacuum up the excess cleaning solution, with any remainder left behind by the ICS allowed to either air-dry or be squeegeed down a floor drain.

“When I was first approached about touch-free systems I was hesitant because it didn’t have a vacuum and I thought the vacuum was important, but by being able to squeegee you really don’t need the vacuum,” said Sizemore. “Also, if you use it everyday, you don’t have to go into every restroom periodically and give it a restoration where you flood it with water and use high psi’s to do the cleaning.

“We can use the ICS everyday. You don’t have to worry about cords and hoses and it can double as a maid cart, which cuts down on supplies and costs. Now, we can assign a person just to restroom cleaning. They have all of the supplies they need on the ICS and can go from restroom to restroom, not just cleaning fixtures, but cleaning the whole restroom—in the same amount of time it takes just to clean the fixtures. It’s a better cleaner, it’s healthier, and in this day with swine flu and MRSA, it’s good to know that, for example, the walls and behind the toilets are also being addressed, and we’re not just wiping down the fixtures and leaving.”

Delivering The Goods
We’ve all been tempted by the seemingly miraculous products that are offered via infomercials on television, the ones that promise so much more than their intended use, but rarely deliver. DeVon Miller has seen the commercials, and as the Division Manager of Sizemore’s Charlotte, NC, branch office he’s responsible for identifying and purchasing the best equipment for his staff and customers. In that position, he’s heard numerous sales pitches for new equipment that promises the moon and delivers nothing but headaches.

“There are a lot of things out there that, for several applications, work well, but I liken it to having a vacuum cleaner with all these fancy attachments that costs $5,000 and you end up using it only for vacuuming. With other cleaning machines, there is a tendency to find one application that they’re really good at and that’s all you use it for,” Miller said. “Once we got a chance to look at the ICS machine we saw that it was a user-friendly device and very well thought-out, like an idea you come up with, get some feedback and then refine the design, and that machine has a lot of things that myself and my operations manager like about it.”

Due to the versatility of the ICS, Sizemore can expect a faster return-on-investment. In addition to the traditional cleaning of restrooms, the ICS can be used for pre-spotting carpets before extraction and a number of other cleaning applications found in various facilities.

“I like the on-board battery-charging system,” continued Miller, “it holds more water than a bucket so you have less trips to and from a water source, it doesn’t have a lot of parts so you don’t have to take this off and put this on, it has locking wheels, it is very stable, and you have the ability to change chemicals simply by turning the select valve and we can use our choice of chemicals.”

This last quality was crucial for Sizemore since they have recently partnered with a major cleaning-chemical manufacturer and distributor for their chemicals, and these chemicals will not mate with some competitive machines, but can be used in the ICS.

“With the ICS, we’re not locked into one manufacturer for chemicals,” said Miller. “With some other systems if you change vendors, unless you can get some sort of modification done to the machine, it renders that piece of equipment useless.”

Green Is The Thing
In 2004, Sizemore Janitorial Services launched its Green Solutions Program, which is committed to providing a healthier, cleaner environment by using products and cleaning practices that cause less toxic pollution and waste, conserve resources and habitats, and minimize global warming and ozone depletion. The partnership with its new chemical supplier is an offshoot of this program since Sizemore felt that the new chemicals, which feature no dyes, fragrances, toxic chemicals or VOCs, offer the best cleaning products to meet the needs of Sizemore’s green initiatives.

And with its ability to accommodate the new chemicals, the ICS fits into Sizemore’s parameters for equipment use in the Green Solutions Program.

“From a workmen’s comp standpoint, knowing we’re using green chemicals, it gives me a comfort level knowing I’m not exposing the staff to harsh chemicals,” said Sizemore. “Knowing that we’re using a safer product to handle the cleaning means we’re making it a safer workplace.”

Using green chemicals also makes it safer for the general population as Sizemore points out that all buildings have air returns and ventilation systems that can circulate harmful air-borne chemicals throughout the building. By itself, the operation of the ICS also offers a number of environmentally friendly benefits, including a reduction in noise pollution due to its near-silent operation; reduced energy consumption due to the rechargeable battery; a reduction in air-borne particulates; properly diluted chemical usage; and a reduction in physical stress on workers.

Power To The People
No innovation is worth anything if it doesn’t appeal to the most important people—the one’s who have to use it. According to Sizemore, his custodial staffs have embraced the ICS from day one.

“The hardest part of training people to use a touchless restroom system like this is getting them to understand you have to move on to the next restroom, this one’s clean,” he chuckled. “It can become a very exciting tool for them to use, and now they actually volunteer to do restroom cleaning. With the old mop-and-bucket system, restroom cleaning was the worst job, but you put this in their hands and they get a good result so often, they want to keep doing it.”

In the end, a happy staff is a staff that wants to do the best job possible—and can be relied upon to do just that. In ensuring this, the ICS can be as much a psychological tool as a physical one.

“The staff will more readily clean areas that would often be ignored, like commodes and toilets,” said Sizemore. “That is no longer an issue and there’s no more bending down to wipe behind things. It can be very demeaning and very demoralizing to walk into a restroom to clean it, and too often people will go out of their way to trash the restroom. The ICS allows someone to stand back and use the tools on the machine and not have to physically get down into the soiled area. When they see the ICS and understand it, they’re happy to clean restrooms.”

Adds Miller: “Employees who use the machine, especially in the restrooms, gained increased credibility. The general perception is that what our employees do is ‘just’ cleaning. However, I have noticed that when a customer sees an employee with, or using the machine, typically they will pause momentarily to observe, some may make comments and others may even ask questions. To some degree, when this happens the employee feels empowered. Using the ICS allows them to validate what they do and gives relevance to the task. In short, I believe employees using the system, truly feel as though they are levels above those employees who use traditional processes to clean a restroom.”

In addition to the psychological effects the ICS can provide, there are also measurable economic benefits, as well.

“It cuts down on time,” Sizemore said. “When you talk about going into a restroom, with this you can go from three minutes to clean a fixture to one minute, in some instances, to clean a fixture.”

Conclusion
Sizemore, Inc., didn’t gain its reputation or stature by sitting back and waiting for change to come to it. When the company felt a system or operation had to be improved, it went out and proactively found a way to do it better—for the customer, the public and its employees.

The incorporation of Hydro Systems’ ICS 8900 touchless cleaning unit into the cleaning regimens offered its wide array of customers is just the latest example of Sizemore looking for and finding a way to enhance the services it provides, while also taking the needs of its employees into consideration.

“With the ICS, you have a real tool in hand that allows the cleaners to do their job and do it well, and the people are going to use it, it’s not going to get pushed off to the side,” concluded Sizemore. “When you show it to an employee for the first time and they’ve been cleaning restrooms for years, they become your friend and think you’re a hero, and they also think you’re investing in them, which they like and appreciate.”