Cleaners:In-house or outsourced?

Neil Brown, technical director at Hygiene Group, examines whether in-house or external staff are the best solution to maintaining a clean, safe, hygienic production facility

Production facilities have to be clean, and this cannot be left to chance because of the human risk, the commercial risk and the impact on reputation. Contract cleaners traditionally have an image of high staff turnover and higher cost, but cost calculations for comparison between using in-house staff and outsourcing are often more complex than first meets the eye, while the better contract cleaners will generally have taken significant steps to hold on to reliable staff.

A 'natural'way of working? In many manufacturing sectors, in-house cleaning has traditionally been perceived as the 'natural' way of working as production, hygiene and facilities managers perceive they have greater control over the cleaning process and costs, and that in-house cleaning offers more flexibility.Whether cleaning is undertaken by production staff - who by definition are not specialist cleaners - or by a dedicated in-house cleaning crew, the staff will know that site inside-out and are generally known personally to their managers, making it theoretically easy to establish a methodology meeting both technical and hygiene needs, and delivering the required quality and consistency. But is it always so clear cut? Establishing an effective cleaning regime entails significant management time given the level of detail required. The task involves a gamut of decisions from selecting the correct type of chemical for the soil and managing the risks of corrosion, selecting and managing equipment and consumables suppliers, and managing ongoing safety requirements. It also includes selecting cleaning methods - foaming, pressure-washing, clean-in-place, and so on - training staff in the most effective way to clean and monitoring the process through inspections and audits.

Furthermore, there is the question of ensuring cleaning systems and methods are kept up to date. Production demands are constantly changing, while new product development and equipment bring new challenges in cleaning and disinfection. Put simply, a cleaning regime which several years ago may have been ideal in terms of staff numbers, timing, processes and chemicals cannot be guaranteed to be appropriate or cost-effective now.

Ongoing quality management takes up a substantial amount of time too. Even if just half an hour each day is spent reviewing reports and audits, this equates to around three weeks annually.

The question of cost The cost differential between insourcing and outsourcing can be tricky to calculate. It is notoriously difficult to realistically cost inhouse time, particularly management, making like-for-like comparison of in-house against outsourced costs difficult. If, for example, the in-house cleaning team's working times and hours are altered to accommodate changes in production, they will undoubtedly have received some financial recompense.

However, a specialist cleaning contractor can often take on the job 'as is', recruiting staff to work at the required times without necessarily needing to pass on additional staff costs to the customer. The contractor can also easily access additional staff for specialist/occasional jobs such as deep cleans.

Internal staff 's 'closeness' to their working environment means areas where problems are starting to appear may not be noticed as early as they should be. Over time, there are always areas that look tired, or where stains and discolouration develop; these can become 'wallpaper', making external audits invaluable in catching them before they become an issue.

A recognised benefit of working with some of the larger chemical suppliers can be that they see similar problems on many sites, and can recommend proven solutions to a specific issue. This is even more true of nationally-based contract cleaners, whose multi-site experience will cover not just chemical selection and use but training, management of labour, selection and methods of use of chemicals, documentation and auditing.

Choosing the right contractor can sometimes deliver cost savings, but this should never come at the expense of working with a partner operating to current standards and using up-to-date materials and methods.

Indeed, a supplier whose breadth of experience covers the whole hygiene function is invaluable not just in correcting ongoing issues but in avoiding problems in the first place. It is also key to saving management time, ensuring safe, legal production and ultimately in protecting the company's brand.