Words: Stephen A Russell
Will there come a day when smart buildings clean themselves, making humans completely redundant? Badi Noble, co-director of leading facilities management and commercial cleaning solutions company Olinga Services, doesn’t think so. “I’m still a big believer that, at the end of the day, when it comes to cleaning, it is a people-driven business,” Noble says. “I remember when I started out as a young man working in an office, you got to know the cleaners. And nothing beats that human touch for us, even from a corporate perspective. They’re the greatest marketing we have.”
At the same time, Noble says evolving hardware and software solutions are transforming facility management and cleaning procedures at an unprecedented rate. Whereas staff would previously work to fixed schedules, new technology allows them to be more flexible and responsive.
“We’ve got bin sensors across a number of our sites which have notification systems once they hit a certain threshold, depending on client requirements,” Noble says. “They prompt our staff to be prepared to empty them within the next half an hour or so and gauge fill rates depending on the time of day. It’s the same with jumbo rolls and hand towels.”
This update doesn’t just make the system more efficient, but also brings costs down. If cleaners are manually checking the paper towels throughout a building, they will tend to replace them when there is between 30 or 40 percent left — knowing the towel might run out before they have time to check again.
“You end up with a storeroom filled with a bunch of jumbo rolls that still have a lot of paper left on them,” Noble says. “That’s wastage from an environmental perspective, as well, not just dollars, and it all adds up.”
At the recent ISSA Cleaning & Hygiene Expo, Dan Graoroski, manager of strategic partnerships at iQCheckPoint, said buildings equipped with these sorts of sensors — which autonomously manage the supply chain — were already becoming commonplace in other parts of the world, such as Europe. They can also notify cleaners when an emergency clean might be needed.
“We’re not just seeing dispensers that will tell you automatically when anything needs to be refilled, but also liquid sensors that will tell you if there is water on the bathroom floor,” Graoroski says.
These software solutions build up a bank of useful data. “You start to see patterns,” Noble says. “Monday mornings might be busiest, and it might ease off by Friday afternoon, with work from home. Wet days might be different to sunny ones. Building those profiles also helps us then from a scheduling perspective.” Clients also appreciate the reports the software spits out. “A lot of the building management systems have these platforms, so we’re able to feed our data back into them so they can see how we’re going,” Noble says.
ROBOTS ON THE FLOOR
On the hardware side, vacuuming and scrubbing are key areas of growth for automation. Olinga’s presence at Sydney’s Central Station is a prime example of how smart tech works side-by-side with humans, deploying Gaussian Robotics’ ECOBOT Scrubber75 models, sourced from The Robot Factory, in the new concourse.
“It’s got infrared with lidar and camera technology there, and you can map your site to have electronic walls which it doesn’t cross,” Noble says. “It’s removed a lot of risk of injury and works against accidental breakages with expensive windows, allowing the cleaners to focus on more high-value tasks.”
Those tasks include maintaining the appearance of glass, steel and stone on escalators, lifts and wall panels. “We’ve got the automation in place that does the scrubbing, while staff can do the detailing, because site presentation is very important for these places. For the client, that’s a high-value outcome.”
Tom Culver, CEO and founder of The Robot Factory, says he is seeing more and more interest from facility managers who are keen on adopting robot tech to assist their cleaning staff.
“It’s a joy working with Badi, because he’s leading a very innovative cleaning company, and I think the more innovative they are, the better off they are,” Culver says. “It frees up valuable employees to do those higher-level jobs, rather than spending two or three hours just rolling up and down the floor. Learning how to run the robot is a great skill that elevates their cleaning crew, and the beauty is, you can use them manually, too, if you want to jump on one and take it over.”
The Central Station gig required a lot of planning, working through Transport for NSW’s planning and safety procedures. “But once we could prove to them that the robot’s safe, it’s been operating in there for about nine months now, absolutely perfectly,” Culver says. “It runs while passengers are milling around in the station, obviously not at peak hour, and they actually enjoy seeing the robot run around.”
Again, the reports captured by the robots are proving useful for Sydney Trains. “It shows them exactly the amount of water it’s using and the electricity, even down to the…
He’s already in conversation with hospitals factoring in robotic tech at the design stage, and major infrastructure projects like Cross River Rail in Brisbane. “It’s something that’ll definitely be built into more buildings,” Culver predicts.
That includes helping to clean precarious windows in high and medium-rise buildings, not to mention securing Australia’s sustainable future.
“I find it fascinating that many people in Australia don’t know you need to clean your solar panels,” Culver says. “With just five percent degradation on a solar panel, you lose close to 30 percent of the power. And many of our big solar panel farms are built on flood plains that can create an awful lot of dust and even dirtier panels. So there are lots of opportunities to adapt technology and deploy your crews as the smart layer of your business.”
Back at the Expo, Graoroski said the potential for robotic cleaners to safely access dangerous locations is likely to have huge cost benefits for the industry.
“I think one of the major changes with the investment of technology robotics will be the risk mitigation,” Graoroski said. “For example, drone window cleaning eliminates a lot of risk, which will affect insurance premiums. Insurance companies don’t like people being on the outside of buildings.”
Culver agrees, noting one large-scale facility that discovered the insurance for cleaning its windows would be prohibitively expensive – but only if they used humans for the job.
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER
Noble sees a shared future where smart tech and robotics work alongside employees as an assistive tool, making the cleaning business safer and more efficient while still being driven by passionate people who get the little details right. Noble puts his money where his mouth is on that front.
“When we started as a labour-hire company, we decided we wanted to get into a market that paid our staff properly, that treated them properly,” he says. “The motivation of a staff member is so critical.”
Innovative technology can play a role in ensuring workers are working smarter, which also ensures they’re not exhausted or placed in harm’s way. “We see it as a tool that enhances the capability of our staff.”
When it comes to working smarter, the great leaps forward are on both the software and hardware fronts, benefitting workers as well as the organisation.
“We’ve invested heavily on the software side to help us with our scheduling,” Noble says. “It makes it easy for staff to onboard, with induction tools and safety documentation managed through our online platforms. It allows our people to go in and swap shifts with other staff members or pick up more work, allowing them greater flexibility. We’re finding that our no-show rate is now close to zero.”
