To dispense or not to dispense. It seems to be a question among janitorial supply distributors. But there’s no questioning the popularity of chemical proportioners and dispensers; manufacturers report sales are hopping. They also say that today’s customers are more concerned with equipment than chemicals.

Bob Bank, of Cello Professional Products in Havre de Grace, Md., says, initially, distributors weren’t particularly receptive to his company’s chemical dilution systems. But end users soon realized they could reap great benefits: employee safety, no chemical waste, and better all-over cleaning results, to name a few, says Bank.

“Everyone’s more concerned with quality cleaning these days in your hotel room, airplane, et cetera,” says Marvin Klein, president of PortionPac Chemical Corp. in Chicago.

Since the entry of chemical proportioners and dispensers into the marketplace, a debate has escalated about which is the best product for rationing chemical solutions. Like many products, it depends on the customer’s needs.

With office rents increasing and pools of available employees shrinking, companies want to max out their efficiency. They are stepping up their marketing efforts to offer customers chemical proportioners and dispensers that aren’t pricey but that still do the job.

“What people don’t want is something that’s supposed to save them money but costs them an arm and a leg up front,” says Douglas Bragdon, institutional and laundry products manager at Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Beta Technology. “It’s kind of a penny-wise and pound-foolish thing.” Beta manufactures chemical dispensers for laundry and janitorial use.

Sales Pick Up
If you flash back to a few years ago, these products were a tough sell. Times have changed, however, say the manufacturers.

“The chemical proportioning arena is the most important development in the last 10 years,” says Rick Yanez, vice president of marketing at Lake Forest, Calif.-based Knight Inc. But, “controlling costs in a cleaning environment is as important today as it’s always been.” He says that equipment costs have plummeted in the last five to 10 years due to greater efficiency in manufacturing.

“There’s no question that the popularity of chemical dilution systems has grown and made it an important part of the janitorial distribution industry’s product line,” says Bank.

Jeff Smith of Dema Engineering in St. Louis adds that the popularity of automatic scrubbers has raked in huge sales dollars in the past 10 years, and proportioner sales have reflected that trend. Companies expect better service than they did then. “The end users who have to pay their bills on a regular basis and who use a significant amount of product require a product that gets the job done,” says Smith.

There’s a big need for mobile dispensing systems, says Hydro’s Pete Maglocci. Hydro is based in Cincinnati and manufactures proportioning and dispensing systems

What are some of the new products on the market? Beta did a product demo for its Tahoe product at the annual International Sanitary Supply Association show last year. Knight recently unveiled its KP1H (Knight Proportioning One Hand) product, that ensures better safety, convenience and simplicity. Yanez compares the ease of KP1H to a soda vending machine — the user presses a button.

St. Louis-based Dema Engineering Inc. recently introduced a drum-mount proportioning product.

“In recent years, customers have said they wanted a better flow rate than 4gpm,” says Smith. Klein agrees that a new manufacturing method is needed. The previous way detergents were packed — in pails and drums — increased a company’s shipping costs. PortionPac was one of the pioneers of “high concentrates” in 1965.

“Using high concentrates is a big saving to the manufacturer, the distributor, everybody,” says Klein.

“With the cost of energy and the demand for high quality cleaning the high concentrate will thrive,” he adds.

There are several catch phrases manufacturers’ sales teams throw out to distributors. For Yanez, it’s “ultimate ease of use” and “one-handed filling” that usually do the selling trick. Also, he says, a distributor can buy just a few parts but have a number of configurations.

Klein tells his clients that the cost of these chemicals is only a decimal proportion of their company’s budget. Companies should ask themselves whether they are helping people save labor. That’s the dramatic advantage of it.

If there’s one way that companies can save money, it’s with the shipping and storage of chemical mixtures. In other words, the more concentrated the mixture, the smaller the package. Under the old manufacturing method, “You’re paying money for shipping water and there’s absolutely no control for how this product is used,” says Yanez. Also, employees are spared the risk of back injury if they don’t have to carry a bucket filled with water.

“If you’re trying to lift a 5-gallon bucket...that causes a lot of back injury,” says Maglocci.

Also, he says, the more chemicals that an employee handles the more likely his skin will become irritated.

In today’s business world, there’s a fast turnover rate and employers need to train their employees even faster.

Most chemical proportioners and dispensers are dummy-proof. “All of the companies in this industry have products that are as simple as point-the-hose-at-the bucket, push-the-button, and let-go-of-the-button,” says Smith. Also, there is an increasing number of non-English-speaking workers in the environmental services field who can operate these products even if they can’t read the instructions.

Dema is adopting more of an electronic approach, says Smith, by focusing on an electronic product line. “The whole product line is becoming more advanced, more electronic. That’s the direction the world is going,” he says.

Several manufacturers are venturing into the global market. Maglocci says that Hydro has sales offices that cover Latin America and Asia. “If you can lower the costs for the dispensing equipment, you can expand the universe of people who potentially use the equipment,” says Maglocci.

While these products may get the cleaning job done, there are minor considerations customers should know about.

First off, employees should read the operating directions carefully to determine the frequency the product is used — and also, if it’s an appropriate product. “You wouldn’t want a person mopping your floor with a product that’s going to injure it,” says Klein.

“As a mechanical device, there are problems that can arise. Most of these problems can be prevented by proper maintenance of the unit, like keeping it clean and observing any problems and taking the steps to repair,” says Bank.

Some job sites might be too small to necessitate fancy proportioners. “If you have an office and you have only five employees, are you going to put a vending machine in?” asks Yanez. “There has to be a sufficient amount of use to warrant using this equipment.”

Another negative selling point is that there can’t be too many people who have access to the chemicals, says Klein. This could lead to misuse. Often companies struggle to find space to store proportioners. Proportioners should be stored where people can easily access them, not two blocks away. And they should be hooked up to a water supply.

Storing the proportioners far away would be “a huge waste of labor that you’re trying to save,” says Klein.

But good news lies ahead since “the market really wants the distributor to help them,” says Klein.

Kristine Hansen is a freelance writer based in El Segundo, Calif.




POSTED ON: 2/1/2001