Generally, commercial cleaning and disinfection services are performed at night to minimize disruption to the work environment during standard business hours. But for businesses such as food production and food processing facilities with operations ongoing 24 hours per day, the question is how to effectively clean without impacting the continual work flow?
Food production and food processing facilities should have a well thought out plan for maintaining the cleanliness of their work environment while maintaining the security and productivity of their employees as well as that of the cleaning crew. A good commercial cleaning company will run background checks on their employees to ensure they are staffing their cleaning crews with solid employees. For security purposes, all employees should wear a uniform that differentiates them from other workers at the facility. Wearing company issued name badges with their picture is another level of security for identifying the crew.
There should be designated shifts for cleaning so workers can arrive at one time. This helps identify any no shows, and the crew supervisor can quickly call for a replacement. Otherwise, they can work with the crew to redistribute the work so all activities on the scope of work will be completed. Depending on the schedule of work in the facility, there are several alternatives to schedule cleaning while minimizing disruption to worker productivity.
Zone cleaning is easily accomplished if there are areas that have no activity for a period of time. Workers can take coordinated breaks to free an area for the cleaning crew to quickly and clean and disinfect. This can be orchestrated in a “round robin” format until the entire area has been completely cleaned and disinfected.
With the disruption to food production facilities with the onset of COVID-19 and the need for stepped up production, it has created challenges for the cleaning crews to effectively complete their tasks. One solution to this dilemma is the use of porters throughout the day to disinfect high touch areas, empty trash cans, clean and disinfect restrooms and employee cafeterias. This will enable a smaller crew to do the detailed night cleaning in a compressed amount of time, thus minimizing the disruption to the ongoing operations.
Although cleaning a 24 hour production facility can be challenging, working with a professional commercial cleaning company to schedule work throughout the day to ensure peak productivity and effectiveness should guarantee a properly disinfected production facility.
