Transitioning from Traditional Cleaning Techniques to Improve Safety and Profitability

In today’s marketplace, businesses are seeking any advantage to gain a competitive edge. One way to improve public perception and company reputation is to maintain a clean facility from the inside out. While cleaning the inside of the building presents its own myriad of challenges, maintaining the exterior can be a dangerous, or even deadly, endeavor. Traditional window washing methods, such as boatswain’s chairs or scaffolds, require workers to hang precariously over the side of multiple story buildings and leave them vulnerable to falls and other injuries.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), work-related fall hazards are a serious concern, resulting in over 700 deaths in 2010. Additionally, fall injuries constitute a considerable financial burden for companies. Workers’ compensation and medical costs are rising from occupational fall incidents, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are estimated at approximately $70 billion annually in the United Sates. These costly injuries directly impact a company’s potential for profitability.

With revenue growth driving most business models, facility managers need a solution that allows them to improve safety without impacting productivity or profitability. The evolution of automated window cleaning systems offers a solution that simultaneously meets these demands.

Good Safety is Good Business – How to Create a World-Class Safety Culture

This article was originally posted in Industrial Hygiene News.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2010 studies on occupational injuries and fatalities, there were over 3 million recorded cases of nonfatal workplace injuries and more than 4,500 fatalities in 2010 in private industry alone. Safety incidents cost businesses a vast sum in not just workers’ compensation but also by causing severe hits to productivity via lost work days, human resources time spent on incident investigation, decreased leadership efficacy and other operational and organizational costs. DuPont is proud to be known for its workplace safety and over the years has experienced first-hand how creating a safety culture leads to a more sustainable business. Following is an example of how DuPont helped one energy company undertake a safety culture initiative and the lasting benefits the company derived as a result.

Edison Mission Group (EMG) manages the competitive power generation business and other subsidiaries of Edison International, a generator and distributor of electric power and an investor in infrastructure and energy assets, including renewable energy. In 2006, an EMG company, Midwest Generation (MWG), an independent power producer that sells electricity in competitive wholesale markets, was in the midst of an increase in the severity of injuries, including fatalities, at its coal-fired plants. MWG senior leadership turned to DuPont for help in improving their safety record with the goal of achieving world-class safety performance. To accomplish this, DuPont began by evaluating Midwest Generation’s safety management against world-class systems in order to identify opportunities for improvement. From there, DuPont made recommendations on how MWG could develop a more effective safety system.

Read the full article here to learn how MWG implemented a superior safety system and the results they experienced because of it. 

Are You Keeping an Eye On the Future of Maintenance?

This article was originally posted in Maintenance Solutions.

Staffing issues. Budget woes. Communication breakdowns. Customer complaints. The list of challenges facing maintenance and engineering managers never seems to end, or even ease up a little. And as existing institutional and commercial facilities age and new facilities come online, a fresh batch of challenges arises.

Given this workload, managers could be forgiven for simply focusing their attention on existing and potential problems at the expense of keeping up with the future of maintenance. While that approach might be understandable, it's probably not wise in the long term.

One tactic for getting a handle on the future of maintenance, as well as for learning about maintenance management strategies and troubleshooting trends and technology, is tapping into the world of manufacturing maintenance. Why?

Michael Cowley, president of CE Maintenance Solutions and a columnist for Maintenance Solutions, pointed out the most important reason at the National Facilities Management and Technology Conference & Expo last month in Baltimore: Manufacturing figures out equipment problems more quickly because of the money involved in production downtime. A chiller breakdown in a university classroom building makes for some uncomfortable indoor conditions, at worst. But an equipment breakdown at a steel plant means a direct and immediate hit to the company's bottom line. The consequences are too dire to treat maintenance as anything but a vital component of success.

For this reason, managers would be wise to keep track of maintenance trends in the manufacturing world. But for managers who need to justify this time commitment to themselves or others, consider some of the benefits institutional and commercial facilities already have realized from adapting strategies and tactics from manufacturing.

Many facilities that once relied solely on reactive maintenance have made the move — or started to, at least — to preventive maintenance. A select few have even adapted some practices of predictive maintenance. Both strategies were developed and refined in manufacturing plants.

Front-line technicians in those plants also popularized the use of essential troubleshooting technology — infrared imaging and vibration analysis are just two examples — that institutional and commercial facilities have latched onto and are benefiting from.

To begin or continue tapping into the opportunities that exist in manufacturing, managers need to ask — and answer — some tough questions. How many of your professional peers are in manufacturing facilities? Do you benchmark your department's performance against that of their departments? When did you last spend time thinking or talking about the possible benefits to your facilities of strategies and technology common in manufacturing?

Such questions might be tough, but probably not as tough as the predicament managers could find themselves in if they choose to ignore the issue and its opportunities.

Advantages of Automated Window Cleaning Systems

Compared to traditional bucket and squeegee cleaning methods, an automated window cleaning system offers several benefits:

• Fast return on investment (ROI)
• Labor savings of 70-80%
• Now a safer job; it’s easier to find and retain labor 
• Safely operates from the top of your building or from the ground
• Cleans the entire exterior; not just the glass
• Uniform cleaning using only spot-free pure water—No chemicals required
• No buckets, chairs, squeegees or other objects that can fall
• Cleans much faster and better than hand washing
• Optional in-line water heater delivers hot water for removing stubborn stains
• Potential dramatic savings in liability insurance and worker’s compensation insurance
• Green chemicals can be injected if needed into the Sky Pro or SkyDro washer machines

The Life of a Window Cleaner

This article was originally posted in Blogger News.

According to those who did it, window cleaners have “adventurous jobs.” Others would call it dangerous. These people hang out over the sides of buildings on wooden platforms and safety ropes, keeping clean the numerous windows found on everything from skyscrapers to low-rise office buildings and shops. The people who undertake this task must not only have to know how to clean windows well but be up to the challenge of getting to these windows.

Window cleaners are in high demand. This is because architects keep trying to outdo each other by creating complex and admired buildings, making window cleaning a more difficult and more needed job. There are also risks involved in the job. About five to 10 window cleaners die each year in the United States. Despite this, window cleaners don’t worry much about falling or getting killed on the job. They take necessary safety precautions. Plus they are protected by the International Window Cleaning Association, a non-profit trade association that works to maintain the safety and quality of window washers among all kinds of window washing jobs.

Despite the risks, window washers generally enjoy their jobs. They like the freedom of not having a boss looking over them throughout the day. They enjoy the adventure of hanging from large heights. They also like the pay. Window cleaners can make between $10 to $12 to start. This can increase to $25 for more experienced workers, making it an ideal profession for young people and immigrants. In saying this, their services are expensive. A 25-story building can cost $100,000 a year for two or three cleanings. Smaller buildings cost about $4,000. Because of this, window washers must maintain a professional attitude in their work. At the end of each work day, they line up their gear like firefighters, organized and prepared for the next day of wherever a window may need washed.