Like many manufacturing plants, a bottling plant is a 24/7 operation. Keeping it clean is also a full-time job – for four people, in our case.
Office Pride Commercial Cleaning Services of Indianapolis-Carmel handles all common areas, administrative areas and floors for a large bottling plant in our service area. We have four full-time people, plus a supervisor, dedicated to this location. They clean twice per day on weekdays and once per day on weekends.
With hundreds of employees staffing the plant and truckers moving in and out picking up and delivering loads, we have to follow a rigorous schedule to keep everything clean while following strict safety guidelines. Our cleaners wear safety vests at all times to ensure they are easily visible to forklift drivers and others.
The most challenging part of this job is maintaining the flooring. Residue from the bottling plant can be tracked throughout the complex, making floors sticky and staining carpets.
Here’s how we make it work:
Common Areas
Restrooms and breakrooms are cleaned often during every shift. Our cleaning crew logs what they clean and the time so we can monitor frequency and watch for trends. In addition to cleaning and disinfecting restrooms, our cleaners restock paper products and mop floors. Because the traffic in restrooms is high and floors require frequent mopping, “wet floor” signs are almost always in use. This helps keep the high volume of people using these facilities safe and healthy.
Breakrooms in the plant and dispatch areas are also used around the clock, so we make sure tables, counters, microwaves and more are wiped down and sanitized frequently to reduce the spread of germs. We also mop the breakrooms frequently.
Color-coded cleaning cloths and mops are used to prevent cross-contamination from the restrooms to other areas. Red cleaning rags are used in restrooms, and green rags are used in breakrooms and offices. For simplicity, we also use red mop handles and mop heads with a red stripe in the restrooms, and green mop handles and green-striped mop heads in other areas.
Administrative Offices
The administrative areas are cleaned in the evenings, after the office staff has gone for the day. Again, we use color-coded cleaning rags and mops to prevent cross-contamination from restrooms to offices and common areas.
The administrative offices and nearby areas are mostly carpeted, which introduces another challenge: We diligently maintain the carpet to prevent stains and extend the lifespan of the carpeting. If the sticky residue from the plant was tracked onto the carpet and not cleaned promptly, it would ruin it.
Floors and Carpets
Keeping the floors clean is a constant battle. Because mopping occurs so frequently, mop heads are replaced multiple times during the day. We use microfiber or nylon mop heads, which can be reused, but that necessitates always having a high number of clean ones on hand.
The sticky floors in the plant area require heavy-duty scrubbing, and we use specialized floor-cleaning machines to maintain cleanliness and meet safety standards. Additionally, we frequently employ auto-scrubbers, which put down water and cleaning solution, scrub the surface and then squeegee the dirt and water off the surface to remove the residue as well as hasten drying.
Jose Bravo is the franchise owner of Office Pride Commercial Cleaning Services of Indianapolis-Carmel.
Jose Bravo is the franchise owner of Office Pride Commercial Cleaning Services of Indianapolis-Carmel.
