Industrial Cleaning Habits & Practices

Industrial Cleaning Habits & Practices: Packaging Industry Focus

Report Overview

This report provides insights into the cleaning habits and practices of organizations in the Packaging Industry. It establishes a benchmark understanding of the role and relevance of industrial cleaning and its impact on product quality, production cost, production efficiencies, worker safety and health and environmental responsibility. This strategic research covers a broad range of topics pertaining to cleaning and provides a starting point for additional research in related areas and complementary industries.

Who should read this report...

• Manufacturing company executives; particularly in the packaging, plastics, rubber, food & beverage, consumer packaged goods industries
• Plant managers that need to reduce costs, improve product quality, improve worker safety and meet environmental regulations and initiatives
• Manufacturing, industrial, process and cost engineers responsible for reducing product cost
• Corporate environmental engineers responsible for implementing environmentally responsible business practices and processes
• Maintenance managers responsible for maintaining overall cleanliness of equipment and facilities
• Contract cleaners who provide cleaning services to the manufacturing industry

The report will provide you with...

This benchmark study provides some new insights into the role and importance of cleaning in a manufacturing environment. The report is based upon the results of multi-question survey and includes discussion points about the data that are intended to provide probing and factual observations based upon the survey results. While the answers to the survey came from representatives in the packaging industry, the survey results and discussion points are relevant to many manufacturing environments. Among the survey questions asked are:

•  What solutions do you use when cleaning equipment by hand?
•  How often does your company clean its production equipment?
•  How cost effective is your current cleaning method?
•  How important is it to your organization that your cleaning methods be environmentally friendly?
•  How important is it to your organization to increase cleaning safety?

Study methodology...

The research was conducted independently by Cold Jet, the world’s largest manufacturer of dry ice blast cleaning systems. While Cold Jet has a particular interest in the cleaning practices of packaging companies, the majority of the questions asked of survey participants were related to general cleaning costs, satisfaction, quality, safety and environmental concerns. The surveyed sample consisted of 141 people representing manager level and higher. Nearly half of the respondents represented business with less than 100 employees; 34 percent were from companies with 100 to 500 employees; and 17 percent were from companies with more than 500 employees. Data was collected during the summer of 2008.

Executive Summary

Industrial cleaning is a multi-billion dollar industry, with U.S. chemical solvent sales alone estimated to reach more than $10 billion by 2010. Lean manufacturing management methodologies such as 5S , Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), and Six Sigma are driving companies to consider maintenance as a necessary and important part of efficient, cost effective operations, not as a luxury. Pioneers that have embraced these established methodologies are reaping the benefits, from extending the life of equipment and increased productivity and service, to reduced waste and better quality.

In addition to supporting organizational quality, service and productivity goals, maintenance plays a significant role in helping companies to meet industry and government regulations, from reducing carbon emissions to improving occupational safety. There is a fervent demand on manufacturers from local, state and federal governments to reduce their carbon footprint and implement more environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. In addition, companies are working to implement safer processes that can reduce on-the-job injuries and their associated cost.

Companies that consider maintenance as a critical process of their operations are better able to identify and eliminate costly and time consuming steps from the traditional multi-stage cleaning process (cleaning preparation, cleaning and post cleaning). They are able to find ways to reduce the impact of cleaning methods on the environment and worker safety. They are able to approach maintenance holistically and eliminate misconceptions of the importance of cleaning and its impact on their companies overall success.

Five Key Takeaways

Below are the five key takeaways for Cold Jet’s first industrial cleaning benchmark study:

• More than 81 percent ranked the effectiveness of their cleaning methods as good, very good or ex-cellent, yet nearly half of all companies indicated they had produced poor quality parts/products be-cause of a poor cleaning job.
• The majority of packaging companies are still cleaning equipment by hand relying heavily on chemi-cal solvents and water.
• The majority of companies still need to shut down production to clean and just under half need to relocate equipment to another area of their facility for cleaning.
• The majority of packaging companies are cleaning their equipment daily or weekly with a cleaning crew of two to three people who take an average of one to five hours cleaning one piece of equip- ment with a budget of $1,000 to $5,000 per month.
• While more than 90 percent indicated that it was important that their cleaning methods be environ- mentally friendly, only a small percentage use green or organic cleaners and more than half rely on chemicals and solvents, as well as water.