“Mechanised House Keeping”

Pawan Verma, Vice-President (Engg & Sales)

TPS Infrastructure Ltd., New Delhi

If you want to get a first idea of the productivity awareness of an organization or its general work culture,
walk around its premises and observe the housekeeping practices – the way the floors are swept, the work
tables organized, the tools and stationery stored, the machines and equipment cleaned and maintained,
personal items kept etc. these often tell more than any financial statement. They are closely linked to the
flow of activities, employees’ morale, product and service quality and inventory level. An organization with
good housekeeping practices is able to control costs, foster greater safely, enhance customer satisfaction
and reduce staff turnover.

Good housekeeping contributes to productivity improvement and the basis for good housekeeping is the
concept popularly known as 5S:
The term “5-S” represents five words in Japanese namely,

Seiri,

Seiton,

Seiso,

Seiketsu

and Shitsuke.
The five steps to good housekeeping provide for more than a way to maintain order. They provide for a
framework for performing maintenance checks and stimulating ideas improvement. They are the
foundation for more responsible behaviour as they involve the responsibility and commitment of every
member of the organization, from the top management to the shop floor worker. And the ultimate goal of
housekeeping activities is to reduce cost and increase productivity: an organization, which applies 5S, does
not pass on the cost of non-value adding activities to the customer.

When 5S practices are implemented, a world-class workplace is achievable. Out of the 5S the 2S imphasize
on cleanliness

“SEISO” : “To clean and inspect your work place thoroughly so that there is no dust on the floor, machine
& equipment

“SEIKETSU” : “To maintain a high standard of work place organization by keeping everything clean and
orderly at all times”.

One of the basic and important factors of good housekeeping is keeping the equipment, floors, and
approach roads from one workstation of plant to other free from dust, spillages.

A maintenance man has to approach for a regular preventive maintenance in very dusty environments
which is understandably may be ignored by him as it is difficult to work under such conditions, thus many
times in such environments the preventive maintenance will be ignored and the breakdown maintenance is
only taken up resulting in loss of equipment life as well as increase in total down time. There are many
cleaning activities, which involves a very long time if done manually like cleaning & replacement material
from a gas cleaning shell.
Over the time industries have evolved many machanised means for better faster, safe and cost saving
method to maintain better housekeeping. We shall be highlighting the two most frequently used mechanised
means:

1. Industrial Vacuum Cleaner

2. Floor/Approach Road Sweeping/Scrubbing Machines

INDUSTRIAL VACUUMS SOLVE PROBLEMS WHERE OTHERS CANNOT

Today’s industrial vacuum cleaning systems – capable of picking up material as heavy as bowling balls or
as fine as ash – are now far more sophisticated than their brethren, the common shop vacuum.

These powerful and sophisticated vacuum cleaning systems, often custom-designed for specific
applications, but also available pre-engineered, are becoming an integral part of industrial processes for
reclamation of production material, maintaining and cleaning critical production equipment to reduce
downtime, and extraordinary “housekeeping” such as removal of hazardous waste or material too heavy to
be handled safely by human labor.

In fact, for many manufacturers and processors, industrial vacuum cleaners are now being completely
integrated into production and process systems and are quickly becoming a key component of critical
strategic issues that range from productivity to environmental safety and worker health.

Of course, the proper selection of an industrial vacuum cleaning system is based primarily on the
application. In some cases small air and electric powered drum-style units will suffice, while others require
large electric and diesel powered units for multiple users and filtration systems capable of capturing
particles that are invisible to the naked eye.

Some applications require sophisticated customized vacuum cleaner installations. For other applications,
compact, off-the-shell vacuum systems are perfectly adequate when replacing crude or unnecessarily
hazardous cleaning methods, such as the use of compressed air hoses for blowing debris.

The industrial hygiene is an important function that requires effective vacuum cleaning systems there are
increasing concerns among workers, labor unions and OSHA about the quality of the plant environment.

For example, in the glass, brick and cement industries and where sand is extensively used, silicosis (a lung
disease caused by continued inhalation of the dust of siliceous minerals and characterized by progressive
fibrosis and a chronic shortness of breath) is a threat that can be alleviated through the use of vacuum
cleaning systems with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration, instead of shoveling, sweeping or
blowing the dust around the plant.

In addition, vacuum cleaner filtration systems must be capable of completely removing hazardous materials
and even everyday dust from the workplace. Vacuum systems must have appropriate power, in many
instances capable of picking up heavy production residue, returning such material to the production
process.

Industrial vacuum cleaning systems are also frequently used as a means to clean machine tools and other
manufacturing equipment. However, it is not uncommon for manufacturers to incur thousands of hours of
downtime each year using manual or other outmoded methods to clean machine tools and automated
production equipment. A manufacturer of jet engines as a good example of where productivity gains and
capital equipment savings are dramatic.
“One company uses a $3 million waterjet cutting
machine tool in its manufacturing operations. It
used to take a full week to remove the wet
abrasive using shovels. We were able to reduce
the cleanup time to less than two days with our
vacuum cleaning equipment, enabling the
company to pick up substantial operating time
and produce more engine parts, and avoid any
back injuries,”.

In case of Steel Plant in their COGD Plant (Coke

Oven Gas Desulphrisation) there are many
Cylindrical shells with sizes varying from 5m3
to 15m3, containing activated carbon and granule
filtration mediums. Frequently they had to
replace the waste activated carbon which
involved opening the lid & keep it open for a day
for escaping the CO (Carbon Monoxide Gas)
entrapped and then almost a 10 days campaign to
revolve slushy waste activated carbon from a
shell of 15m3 size. This is being now done in a
total 4 hours campaining a net saving of almost TYPICAL PIPING NETWORK
10 days for only one shell.

In another case the entire length of Coke Oven Battery in a Steel Plant which is 400 metres long, where
daily spillages amounts to, approx 30/40 tonnes. The Battery floors and the equipments, stamp charging
machine etc.are being cleaned and Coal is recovered everyday saving a lot of time, manpower and
obsiously money.

In many instances, the benefits of a correctly chosen vacuum cleaning system include productivity and
safety. In pharmaceutical applications as an example, where product recovery is vital, since many
pharmaceuticals are worth hundreds of rupees an ounce.

“At the same time, you want to make sure you recover the material safely – you certainly don’t want
powerful pharmaceuticals blowing around in the air and affecting operators,”.

One company provides television glass to the world’s leading television tube manufacturers – including
RCA, Sony, Toshiba, Phillips, Panasonic, Samsung and Daewoo. Their plant produces more than 10 million
glass panels per year, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

With a manufacturing operation that is in constant motion, the company scheduled time-consuming manual
cleanings of iron oxide dust and glass shard accumulation when production permitted. From a health, safety
and quality perspective, the company had to find a solution for more frequent, automatic removal of these
materials that didn’t depend on a shop being down to complete the work.

“We’re in a very competitive business, yet manufacturing plant appearances can make a noticeable
difference to customers,” said their, hot-end maintenance specialist at the plant. “With the variety of
weights and sizes of waste material – ranging from 2-inch pieces of glass down to fine silica and iron oxide
dust – we wanted a system that could clean up that spillage. We also wanted to send the hazardous waste
into drums for disposal, and recover the larger pieces of glass so they could be re-melted and reused.”

They says it was critical that the cleaning system would not exhaust iron oxide dust into the air, since even
a small amount of the red dust on a glass TV panel could ruin the product.
To accomplish this, they contacted their local Industrial Vacuum Cleaners dealer to schedule a
demonstration of a continuous-heavy duty vacuum cleaner with the capacity to pick up and filter up to six
tons of material per hour.

A HEPA filter, which is rated 99.97 percent efficient down to 0.3 micron particle size, successfully
prevented iron dust from contaminating production, and the vacuum system cleaned production tables and
conveyors at various points in the plant on a continuous basis, solving the waste problem without slowing
production.

“It was more or less a centralized system,” the Glass Company explained. “It was fairly easy to install, and
we could use it as often as we liked. So we purchased a unit and simply hooked up the attachments to the
central vacuum, and we were ready to go. The system has been working for us with no problems ever
since.”

In a Aluminium Smelter in India, in the Anode Paste Plant there are 9 floors with equipments crushing &
grinding petroleum coke to a fine powder and it was difficult manually to clean & recover the spillages and
dust on the floors, on the equipments, instruments as well as control panels etc. The centralized electrically
operated Industrial Vacuum Cleaners with piping network covering all the floors is operational since last 5
years which does above activities in very clean and efficient way. Further, the spillages and dust are
recovered and recharged in the process.

Similarly, in Pot Tending M/c. (PTM) maintenance bay , in the same Plant, manual cleaning of PTM
involved blowing the dust off the equipment before maintenance, was a dust nuisance. The alumina dust
use to get scattered all around the shop floor which required manual sweeping, collection, pick-up and
manual bagging, a cost & time consuming activity. Now a Centralize Industrial Vacuum Cleaners package
is doing the above work much faster & more cleaner way.

“We’re trying to get away from using compressed air to clean devices and components,” says Technical
Services Manager. “When you use compressed air hoses to clean equipment, you don’t have control of the
debris. Our Industrial Vacuum Cleaning units are a lot cleaner and much easier to maintain, and they help
us to clean very specific areas.”

There are many examples in Metal, Cement, Power Plants, Chemical Industries where the Industrial
Vacuum Cleaners are doing not only the routine cleaning, sweeping and recovery of spillages but
specialized application to save plant down time. Like in case of many power plants the Industrial Vacuum
Cleaners are used other than regular cleaning to clean the coal mill body faster during maintenance, also to
remove tones of material from pent house in few hours than days it used to take manually, again to remove
silt from ash channels of a wet ash handling plant, etc.

THE OTHER MOST IMPORTANT MECHANIZED EQUIPMENTS BEING USED ARE FLOOR
SWEEPERS & SCUBBERS.

FLOOR CLEANING BUFFS THE BOTTOM LINE

Changes in current business trends make mechanized floor sweepers and scrubbers more critical for taming
maintenance costs. We can lists some not-so-obvious cost-saving opportunities:

-Reducing wastewater. Your municipality is likely paying close attention to how businesses handles
wastewater and may impose a wastewater-handling fee. Today’s floor-cleaning machines can recycle water
two or three times with special filters and detergents, cutting back on disposable water cost.
-Making better use of a short labour market for dirty jobs. “Workers are harder to find these days, and
their expectations are higher. It seems every house has a riding lawnmower,” says A C.E.O. “Companies
with walk-behind sweepers are buying rider equipment to make the job more comfortable and, frankly,
more glamorous.” Rider units don’t fatigue a worker as much and can handle larger water tanks, which
means less time spent cleaning out the machine.

-New ways to obtain equipment. Rider-type models are now offered in several smaller capacities than
before to extend their efficiency to smaller sites. Now there are options for leasing, long-term rental,
purchase and machine maintenance. And don’t forget the last, the maintenance part. You ask a lot of a floor
sweeper. It operates continuously amid dirt and dust, with lots of complex machinery. You take a look at a
regular maintenance plan, which can be less expensive than emergency maintenance and the subsequent
unplanned downtime.

-New power sources. Floor sweepers are now available in diesel and battery power with different tire sizes
and engine protection against dust and heat. Models with air-conditioned or protective cabs are available.
These features together can better match a floor scrubber to your particular environment.

TOTAL COST IS REAL COST

When looking at a floor sweeper or scrubber, look at the total cost of operation. Though rider trucks may be
more expensive than a manual sweeping activity, they work faster and make life more pleasant for the
worker – two factors that spell faster payback.

Also, make sure your new machine is sized right for your floor area and aisle width. A multi-shift operation
makes a big difference in machine choice.

It can be pointed out that sweepers can be key elements in manufacturing operations in keeping hazardous
metal dust at bay and in keeping dust contamination off parts. In warehouses, a clean facility can leave a
lasting impression on customers.

The cost factor if quoted by examples, in a Port Trust Roads the annual road-cleaning budget is approx. Rs.
8 crores whereas the Mechanised Sweeping will cost a total of Rs. 6 crores. But comparison does not end
with cost comparision, in spite of spending 8 crores, the manual sweeping never gave them a end to end
road, clean and black top visible.

In case of manual sweeping the activities involved are:

1. Sweeping
2. Collection
3. Loading into Trolleys
4. Transportation

Compare this to Mechanised Sweeping, you only run

the sweeper thus cutting down the number of activities
and the time. In case of mechanized floor sweeping
even the fine power/dust is also picked up thus not only RIDE-ON TYPE MOBILE ROAD
you get a clean floor but free from any polluting fine
dust which can never be sweeped by a manual method.

.
The above are only few examples of mechanized means available for improving housekeeping cost
effectively and faster, there are many other mechanized means like:-

Mechanized high power desilting machine, which can do desilting of setting tank of filtration, plants a
rate of 15 ton/hr, picking up hazardous muck/slush/debri without risking any human life.

In conclusion, I can quote “Just as oweners & plant managers may underestimate the value of
cleaning, they may be under estimating the cost of not cleaning”.

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