Certification Helps District Define Excellence

Operation: Upper Merion Area School District
Location: King of Prussia, Penn.
Space Being Cleaned: Six schools, five auxiliary buildings, 883,000 square feet of net cleanable space
Employees: 30 full-time custodians
Certification: CIMS certification
Certification Obtained: October 2009

Upper Merion Area School District, based in King of Prussia, Penn., was the first K-12 school district to achieve ISSA's Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) certification with Honors in October 2009.

"Being first was one of the drivers for us," says William Dillon, custodial coordinator for the district.

With six schools and five auxiliary buildings totaling nearly 883,000 square feet, executives believed certification was important to streamline processes. In June 2009, Upper Merion took its first step toward certification by documenting its existing practices.

"Prior to CIMS there was really no structure or written plan in place, including cleaning schedules," Dillon says. "It was like this custodian does this section, that one does that section, and they all did it their own way."

District executives employed CIMS six areas of management best practices to examine and quantify existing operations, as well as identify areas for improvement. They found the custodial department already had safety, recycling and employee recognition programs in place, along with detailed cleaning schedules, extensive training, equipment maintenance records and workloading management protocols. But hazardous communication plans, chemical hygiene/spill containment plans, environmental policies and customer surveys needed a CIMS-inspired facelift.

As improvements were implemented, management was intentional in involving custodians in the process.

"We held several meetings to discuss what CIMS certification meant and integrated the staff into the decision making process," says Dillon.

Today the in-house department is a tight and seamless operation. In fact, since implementing CIMS, the district has seen a $504,000 decrease in operational overhead for custodians, a nearly 20 percent decrease in operational overhead in just one.

The district now runs efficiently with 30 custodians as opposed to the 37 it once had. Though no one was laid off, open positions were not filled because "they were no longer needed," Dillon says. Instead, CIMS processes have created efficiencies.

A hybrid system of team cleaning, zone cleaning and robotic cleaning enabled the operation to increase the square feet cleaned per hour. Before CIMS, a custodian cleaned approximately 22,000 square feet during an eight-hour shift.

"It's now up to 28,000-30,000 in most facilities and as high as 31,000 square feet per eight hours per employee in some," says Dillon.

Successfully navigating the certification process did require some outside help, admits Dillon. Upper Merion enlisted the help of Bill McGarvey, an ISSA certification expert and director of training and sustainability at Philip Rosenau Company Inc.

"Usually distributors have someone on staff to help walk you through the process and determine the information you need to obtain, the information you need to develop, and the pieces that may be missing," Dillon says.

The certification process involves on-site reviews of an operation's systems, processes and documentation. This audit comes at an expense, which includes a $1,500 assessment fee per day of the audit. Because the district was well prepared come audit time, they were able to keep the assessment to one day, so the total tab for its CIMS certification came to $2,995, which included a $500 application fee, $995 certification fee as a member, and $1,500 assessment fee.

Since receiving certification, Dillon states he's seen an increase in employee moral and employee pride, and attributes that to their being proud of this accomplishment.

"CIMS is now the platform of our program," adds Dillon. "It not only defines our standard of excellence, but also allows us to market our program on a regular basis to our customers: The community, the students and the staff."

Click here to read profiles on facilities that have qualified for certifications such as LEED-EB, GS-33 and (OS1).

Ronnie Garrett is a freelance writer based in Fort Atkinson, Wis.