Are you or your team responsible for maintenance and facility cleaning? Do you have a checklist of work to be completed in each area and team members assigned to do that work on a set schedule? What if your work was more dynamic? What if you had technology to assist your team with restroom maintenance? What if YOU could impact the guest experience?
Phone apps that connect you and your team to the experience of each user in the building to "Smart" equipment connected to the internet are all available to make facility cleaning more efficient, more effective, and more experience focused. Welcome to the Internet of Things (IoT).
Have you ever driven down a major thoroughfare like the New Jersey Turnpike and stopped in a rest area to use the restroom? With 20, maybe even 30 other people also in the restroom at the same time, the toilet paper dispensers run low, the soap dispensers must be refilled, trash overflows the waste receptacles, and the floors must be cleaned. There is a way for patrons to use their mobile phones and tablets to quickly alert the facility team of a problem. Even better, imagine that as corrective action is taken, the work is logged, and the patron is thanked for their time and consideration in notifying staff of the problem. Staff members once stood and waited outside a restroom to clean as needed. No longer. Reallocated staff can respond only as required.
Pretend you are a facility staff team member in high traffic airport such as LHR in London. There are millions of guests in the airport every week. That's a lot of hand washing and a lot of hand soap. Using ordinary soap dispensers, facility staff risk the dispensers running out, breaking, and even destruction or theft from the facility. Picture a dispensing system interconnected so that as soap flows to each dispenser, the dispenser records the usage data and transmits it to "the cloud" alerting the facility team to any concerns. Reallocated staff can respond and immediately correct concerns without wasted time or effort.
It's time for the cleaning crew to clean the restroom... or is it? How many people have occupied a particular stall? Is it too soon or too late? These are common questions only answered today by adhering to a strict cleaning schedule and hoping that in the time between cleanings nobody left a mess in a stall. Imagine if instead of using a time-based cleaning schedule, the toilets and urinals used sensors to properly disinfect and then sent data to determine when and what to clean and maintain. If the 3rd stall on the right has received 20 visitors since the last cleaning, and a toilet paper alert is in effect, then there’s a need to clean the stall and refill toilet tissue. If the 2nd stall on the left hasn’t been used since the last cleaning, then there is no need to clean or refill the dispenser. Take control of your cleaning schedule and increase efficiency by tracking restroom usage.
As a guest waits in a line to use a restroom in a busy facility like a stadium, there is a tendency to peer under the stall partition, knock, or even yell out to determine if someone else is already in the stall. There is confusion. There is backlog. There is an opportunity for improvement. Did you know that IoT connected sensors can be mounted to detect whether a guest is occupying a stall? These sensors are not cameras or prying eyes, they are the latest in “presence detection” technology and they are connected to a red light/green light system that alerts other restroom users to the availability of a stall.
The Internet of Things is amazing. We utilize crowd-sourced data and IoT every day. From “smart” watches to traffic apps on cell phones, these technologies have changed the way we interact with the world around us. As these advances reshape the world of cleaning, we are presented with the opportunity to unite cleanliness and guest experience to create value for everyone.
Action Unlimited Resources is employing IoT technology to make facility cleaning data visible, allowing teams to deploy critical resources when and where they are needed most to increase efficiency and enhance the guest experience.