When it comes to warehouses, cleanliness is key. Not only is a clean warehouse a professional standard, but it can also help improve productivity, safety, and worker morale. In this article, we will discuss the best ways to clean the most used part of any warehouse: the floor. Let's get started.
The benefits of a clean warehouse floor are many and varied, but they all come down to one thing: Cleanliness is good for business. When have you seen a successful restaurant, store, or shopping mall with dirty floors? Never, and you should aspire to the same level of excellence. On top of making a great impression, here are 4 main benefits that your company will profit from by maintaining warehouse floors clean:
It is the duty of every employer to protect their employees from harm. In order to ensure this protection, employers must provide a safe work environment that eliminates hazards and any potential causes thereof through effective training and diligent cleaning programs. The floors of warehouses can be hazardous to workers' health and safety. A problem such as an oily patch or debris could create a tripping hazard for them, which leads to frequent slips due to the floor being slippery with oil, water, or a mix of both.
According to the Canadian Center For Occupational Health And Safety, 67% of slips and falls causing injuries in industrial settings happen at normal heights, with wet or oily surfaces and occasional spills as the main culprits. It might seem innocent at first glance, but a broken wrist or a concussion resulting from a loss of balance are more common than you might think.
We all know this instinctively; a clean environment is conducive to focus, calm, and a positive attitude, while a dirty workplace or home is associated with confusion, disorder, and sapped energy. In the case of a warehouse, this disorder can mean missed deadlines or even damaged goods. When workers have to dodge debris or go around spills, they lose efficiency. This may seem like a small inconvenience at first but over time these losses add up and affect deadlines.
The importance of a clean work environment can’t be overstated. Although dirty floors could potentially affect any goods, food products and electronics are the most sensitive to a general lack of cleanliness. You could be held responsible by a client if storage conditions aren't exemplary.
Just like regular house cleaning, this process allows staff to monitor breakages and structural failures. An immediate, quick solution often saves landlords the headache of much larger repair bills when the damage is more extensive.
Before tackling the how-to of cleaning your warehouse floor, you could consider having a team of experts take charge of your floor once or twice a week. Industrial-grade cleaning can be a dirty business requiring specialized equipment that is often better suited for an outsourced company. Even with outsourcing, you will need to keep your warehouse floors clean daily with minimal equipment.
Having said that, there are generally three floor cleaning options available to businesses using warehousing:
In this article, we will focus on a complete in-house approach.
A great first step is to hire an industrial cleaning consultant. A distributor of specialized cleaning products and equipment can often guide you through this process or refer an expert. They should analyze your specific needs, and recommend the most productive and cost-effective solutions. Ask for a detailed document showing the options, their costs, and ease to fix and find spare parts. Finally, to ensure that the recommended equipment is the right device for the task, ask for a practical test in your factory or warehouse to validate the recommendation.
When it comes to industrial usage, the choice is simple. You'll have to plan for the cleaning of large surfaces (aisles, receiving area, etc) and small spaces (offices, washrooms, etc). For these cases, the following are required:
You've seen janitors use them in school corridors, hospitals, office floors, and building lobbies, and they’ve replaced the arduous task of sweeping and mopping since the 1950s. Automatic floor scrubbers are motorized floor-cleaning machines that combine the airflow and suction of a vacuum cleaner with the prescription capabilities of a mop and bucket. With constant brush pressure and even mixing of water and detergent in the solution tank, even the least powerful scrubber will be significantly superior to traditional methods, delivering clean, dry results in a fraction of the time. The automatic floor scrubber is the go-to cleaning equipment for any warehouse floor and you should invest in one even if a team of expert cleaners takes care of regular maintenance.
How is a floor scrubber designed?
An automatic floor scrubber consists of cleaning brushes, a solution delivery system, a dirty water retrieving system, and two tanks: one for the cleaning solution and one for the dirty water.
How does a floor scrubber work?
The fascinating thing with auto scrubbed is that they can perform multiple tasks at once.
These machines clean floors through the following steps:
What is the cost of an automatic floor scrubber?
Floor auto scrubbers are industrial-grade machines built to last several years, and as the old adage says, you get what you pay for. Although there are several possibilities when you account for the second-hand and refurbished markets.
This is what you can expect to invest if you're purchasing new auto scrubbers:
Medium-size auto scrubbers start at $4,000 USD.
Large-size auto scrubbers start at $10,000 USD.
How are automatic floor scrubbers powered?
Modern state-of-the-art auto scrubbers are powered by rechargeable batteries, each designed to accommodate large-scale institutional and industrial usage.
How long does it take to clean a warehouse floor with an auto scrubber?
To answer this question, we assume you've made the correct choice and have invested in modern floor scrubbers. Such a machine, operated by a single individual, will clean about 20,000 sqft in one hour, while a large auto scrubber can clean upwards of 50,000 sqft per hour. Having said that, time is of the essence. Unless you close your storage facility at night, you will want to dedicate no more than an hour to the entire process.
Do I need to sweep before using an auto floor scrubber?
Generally speaking, warehouse floors don't need to sweep floor areas before proceeding with the floor scrubber.
Of course, there are exceptions, namely:
As mentioned before, you'll want to clean small areas and spills. A mop and a mop bucket will be required to take care of offices, staff rooms, washrooms, and other spaces where automatic scrubbers simply don’t make sense.
When it comes to cleaning warehouse offices, washrooms, and staff rooms, standards are similar to domestic spaces, with the extra advantage of paying much lower prices for a higher-quality product. These are some advantages of dealing with an industrial product supplier.
Having cleaning materials close by is helpful for employees because it allows for quick solutions in case of spills. A great workplace layout strategy for any industrial facility is to group all employee utility areas in one spot: office, break room, washrooms, and equipment storage.
Warehouses are built to operate 24 hours a day, and chances are that there's a constant flux of work-associated movements going on in yours. But cleaning must be performed nonetheless. The best way is to find a sweet spot that corresponds with a calm period during a 24h period. If your warehouse closes at night, the end of the last shift will be a suitable period for this process.
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