CLEAN Is More Than a Word – It’s a Mindset
Updated: Sep 1, 2022
A CLEAN approach can help in every aspect of your work
At HOTSY PRESSURE WASHERS OF MEMPHIS , we often use “CLEAN” in our conversations, emails, social media and other places. While keeping equipment, machinery and other surfaces clean is obviously a primary goal for many people using pressure washers, detergents and other gear, when we speak of CLEAN, we’re not just talking about how something looks or how sanitary a surface is.
CLEAN is a comprehensive approach and looks at your operation from start to finish, helping you optimize performance and uptime while reducing costs and repair expenses. Working toward CLEAN should be a goal for your business, so let’s take an in-depth look at what CLEAN means and how you can work more efficiently, effectively and safely more of the time.
What Is CLEAN?
CLEAN is a whole philosophy that’s dedicated to helping your operations work smarter, not harder. There are many steps along the path to achieving CLEAN, but it revolves around three central points: Efficiency, Effectiveness and Safety.
Efficiency: Working to be at maximum productivity with a minimum of wasted time, effort or materials to keep costs managed.
Effectiveness: Making sure that your equipment and staff are working to achieve the best results on every job.
Safety: Ensuring that all your work is performed in a safe and practical manner, preventing harm to equipment or surfaces and injuries to workers.
What Stands in the Way of CLEAN?
So what’s stopping you and your operation from being CLEAN? Every day, equipment is assailed by a slew of potential problems – dirt, grime, grease, misuse, operator error, excessive wear and much more. These are the obstacles standing between you and improved operations, and most of them can be addressed with a more conscientious approach to your routine cleaning and preventative maintenance.
Dirt, Grime & Grease
Every day, you use your pressure washer to remove gunk and soils from your machinery, equipment, fleet vehicles and more. This helps keep everything looking great, but serves several additional purposes, too.
A CLEAN piece of equipment is not subject to the wear that dirt and grime can cause, as soiled surfaces can more quickly corrode or wear than regularly cleaned surfaces. In addition, by keeping your gear free of grime and grease, you can also have a clear look at your machinery or surfaces, allowing you to more easily identify any potential faults or failures like oil leaks or worn hoses, letting you make repairs or replace components before you have a critical failure.
Equipment Misuse & Operator Error
Many equipment failures or damages and employee injuries can be traced to improper use of equipment. This can mean either using the equipment in a way it wasn’t intended to operate or being used incorrectly or unsafely by the operator. Fortunately, training can help with this.
By enrolling in a regular training program or including refresher training at set intervals as part of your operations, you can make sure that every member of your team knows the correct ways to operate your equipment. This can help set the standards for use, including setup, usage, cleanup, storage and transportation, ensuring that equipment is properly handled whenever it is being used.
Having routine trainings also provides an opportunity to remind everyone about safe operation practices, including being aware of surroundings, the safety features built into the equipment and the proper procedures to follow before, during and after operating cleaning machinery.
CLEAN Results
When you adopt a CLEAN approach in your work, you’ll quickly see how this philosophy can improve your overall operations. CLEAN equipment looks nicer, which helps you and your team take away a greater sense of pride in your operations. It also can help with employee recruitment and retention, making your facilities and equipment more attractive and appealing.
A CLEAN facility also helps promote a safe working environment. Regularly cleaning machinery and surfaces removes grease and grime that can cause slippages or accidents. Routine cleaning also helps eliminate bacteria and other potentially hazardous materials, helping your team and any products you produce stay healthy and free of any contamination.
Keeping CLEAN also helps with promoting your business and your brand. If your operating facility, fleet vehicles and equipment are all well-maintained and kept free of dirt and grime, you’ll present a CLEAN image outward to current and prospective customers. In this way, CLEAN serves as an investment in your business, helping to keep everything looking and running great while also working as a form of marketing to promote your company to others.
‘If You Have Time to Lean, You Have Time to Clean’
We all have heard the old line from a boss that “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.” With a CLEAN approach, you can work to eliminate that downtime entirely by always keeping your equipment maintained and running well.
The CLEAN approach allows you to more easily see issues on your equipment that might otherwise be obscured by dirt and grime caked on your machinery or working surfaces. This allows you to get ahead of repairs and downtime by seeing some issues early and working to correct them before failures occur.
Another major aspect of CLEAN is keeping up on your regular maintenance and upkeep. This means evaluating your equipment and setting a routine schedule to perform any necessary filter replacements, check hoses, fittings and other connections, and complete any needed tune-ups or system flushes to keep your gear in great operating condition. At HOTSY PRESSURE WASHERS OF MEMPHIS , this is all part of what we look at when developing our CLEAN Accountability Plan.
The CLEAN Accountability Plan
The CLEAN Accountability Plan is put together by a HOTSY PRESSURE WASHERS OF MEMPHIS technician during an on-site visit to see your operations. During this consultation, we’ll take a look at all of your current machinery and equipment that makes up your cleaning system and work to complete a comprehensive profile of your work. This includes:
Reviewing how well your equipment is working for your applications and identifying tune-up needs
Identifying the current accessories you use and identifying new accessories that could help improve work on your different types of jobs
Examining your level of machine usage and compare to recommended service intervals for your machines
Exploring the types of detergents you use, noting any implications that the chemicals may have for your hoses and accessories, and identifying alternate options or bulk pricing that may be more beneficial
Looking at the water used in your regular cleaning jobs and examining how the pH of your supply may impact your cleaning
Discussing operator and safety training practices and identifying any needs for new or ongoing education and support
Get Lean, Get CLEAN, Get Going
You want to optimize your facilities, equipment and operations and maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of your work. HOTSY PRESSURE WASHERS OF MEMPHIS can help. Let our team visit your site and perform a comprehensive evaluation of your cleaning systems and equipment and put together your own CLEAN Accountability Plan to help streamline operations.