It's More Efficient To Clean A Larger Facility

This is a conclusion to the conversation concerning cleaning productivity.

A reader comments: "We have a campus type contract that is spread over a very large geographic area. When we average the large (two 150,000 SF sites with the smaller sites, the numbers do not make sense. Any suggestions how to have real productivity numbers?"

The concept of productivity can be challenging if certain standards are not pursued. You should not compare apples with oranges or pumpkins for obvious reasons. There are simply too many differences to effect meaningful data. One of the concepts I teach in my workshops is the principle of Inverse Comparison. Briefly stated, the larger a site, the more efficient (think productive) it can be whereas the smaller the site, the less efficient it will be. This is due in part to efficiencies built into a large site.

Think of a janitorial crew arriving at a large downtown location and immediately starting on their assigned tasks (either zone or team cleaning) with janitor closets, equipment and supplies readily available. Then think of a worker or crew traveling in a van to a small site, unloading the equipment, performing the tasks, reloading the equipment and traveling to the next site to perform the same or similar tasks over again. If you compare the square footage covered by the crew in the large site to the square footage covered by the traveling crew you will note that the larger site is far more productive.

My rule of thumb (which you can certainly disagree with) is that the smaller an account is under 50,000 SF, the less efficient it will be due to logistics and other factors. That is not to say that High Performance Cleaning utilizing the correct tools and processes will not help to reduce the time but all things considered, the larger the site the more productive it can be.

Your comments and questions are important. I hope to hear from you soon. Until then, keep it clean...

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678-314-2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net.