What Are Industrial Cleaning Services?

Industrial cleaning services are specialized cleaning services for areas in industrial facilities, such as factories and manufacturing facilities, self-storage buildings, warehouses and power plants. Because many industrial environments are busy, high-traffic places, whether they manufacture products around the clock or simply store goods until shipment or removal, industrial cleaning truly entails performing thorough, consistent cleaning using specialized cleaning tools and techniques—a job typically done by a professional commercial cleaning service team.

Dirt and debris can accumulate quickly in these environments, and it’s important to remove them to avoid harming workers and expensive machinery. Industrial cleaning companies must be highly skilled, flexible with their schedule and team and prepared to tackle specialized cleaning needs to achieve a pristine workplace for both employees and customers.

What does industrial cleaning require?

• Care and attention to clean without interrupting production
• Time and flexibility to clean quickly around production schedules
• Specialized equipment to properly clean and sanitize surfaces

Learn more about this unique service need and the responsibilities of industrial cleaning companies.

Industrial Cleaning Services: What & Where

Everyday industrial cleaning services can include a wide range of duties that will be specific to the environment and the industrial company’s preferences. Reputable industrial cleaning companies maintain staff that are trained, experienced and equipped to clean manufacturing and warehousing spaces and perform their cleaning routines safely and completely.

What are some typical industrial cleaning services?

What companies require industrial cleaning services?

• Factories
• Industrial warehouses
• Manufacturing plants
• Pharmaceutical manufacturers
• Distribution centers
• Self-storage facilities

Janitorial Cleaning vs. Industrial Cleaning

While many of the services above also apply to janitorial services, there is an important distinction to be made between janitorial services and industrial cleaning services: the complexity of the tasks and the level of skill required to complete them.

Janitorial services serve general cleaning and sanitizing purposes to maintain safe, tidy spaces. This typically includes trash removal, carpet and floor care, bathroom maintenance, and kitchen and break area cleaning.

Industrial cleaning services encompass heavier cleaning tasks in more complex, dynamic environments with moving people and parts. This means professionally deep cleaning spaces that require special equipment and cleaning methods.

It’s all in the expertise of cleaning professionals, who are better prepared to meet the stringent cleaning, sanitation and safety demands of industrial commercial operations.

The Mission of Industrial Cleaning: Safety & Productivity

Industrial cleaning is a challenging job performed at high-risk facilities that are responsible for meeting their own industry and safety regulations. This means that commercial cleaning companies offering industrial cleaning services ultimately help manufacturers, distribution centers and other facilities stay compliant. They accomplish this by meeting unique company needs, such as:

• Following certain safe cleaning procedures
• Using special equipment and materials
• Learning how to navigate active and high-traffic spaces
• Preventing cross contamination
• Obtaining security and confidentiality clearances

Cleaning companies also design customized plans to maintain facilities in an organized fashion to avoid interfering with operations and encourage minimized risk. Plant managers and other supervising professionals at industrial facilities are responsible for running efficient, productive operations that mitigate setbacks and production hiccups, which includes maintaining a clean work environment that’s safe and healthy for workers. And these two missions are intrinsically tied. In fact, 71% of manufacturing employees themselves believe operational efficiency strongly affects their productivity, and 94% of employees believe a clean, risk-free work environment affects their happiness.¹

It’s important that industrial cleaning teams make use of the latest best practices to keep employees safe, healthy and focused at work, and it’s worth noting that by thoroughly cleaning hard-to-reach places and keeping a facility’s floor well-maintained, the number of injuries that can occur in a facility will be drastically reduced.

It’s an industrial cleaning company’s job to treat hygiene standards as seriously as the industrial company itself does. The financial impact of a contagious outbreak or injured worker from poorly maintained or unsafe machinery or a worker’s cluttered or unsanitary surrounding environment is significant. Missteps from a cleaning company—or failure on an industrial company’s part to employ a professional cleaning crew—could lead to drops in employee productivity, product quality or reputation.

Industrial Cleaning Technology for Difficult Cleans

Because of the complexity of modern industrial facilities, not only do cleaning crews craft custom schedules for the businesses they serve, but they also provide services with the help of some special technology. Most industrial facilities are very massive, housing large machinery and equipment that is difficult or near impossible to clean with traditional methods and materials. Commercial cleaning staff are knowledgeable about the right products—such as cleaning agents and green cleaning tools—and the right cleaning technologies needed to keep facility equipment in working condition.

More experienced cleaning companies are able to clean hard-to-reach surfaces with technology like vapor cleaning and electrostatic disinfection tools. Methods like these reduce the time it takes to cover, clean and disinfect surfaces compared to conventional tactics.

Electrostatic disinfection technology is used to easily apply disinfectants, mold preventatives and sanitizers to 3D surfaces for a 360-degree clean. It’s often used in facilities where a possible mold or bacteria outbreak has occurred, but industrial cleaners also employ this innovative method in heavy-duty manufacturing facilities and industrial workplaces that require more than an old mop and a bucket of soap.

Is your industrial workplace well-maintained and safe for your employees? Call in the experts to get help creating a customized cleaning program that keeps your space clean, sanitized, safe and uncluttered so you can run a better business. Businesses have trusted Commercial Cleaning Corporation since 1927 to clean challenging commercial environments and provide around-the-clock support while we do it. Contact us today to learn more and schedule a free consultation.

Sources:

1. Tork Survey: Safety and Hygiene Practices in Manufacturing Lead to Happier, More Productive Workers, 2018