Low, Medium or High Risk? How to Choose the Solution for your Facility

For some businesses, cleaning, sanitization and decontamination are really important issues; they have a significant impact on procedures and organization and, ultimately, on their bottom line and sustainability. These businesses have to deal with a range of significant risk factors with respect to washing staff uniforms and equipment, and they must focus on cleaning as one of the main themes in running the business itself. The question here is “do they know the best solutions to assure the cleaning level they require”?

The risk scale

We can identify 3 dimensions for cleaning-related risks: low, medium/high and specific.

1. The low-risk dimension

The cleaning risk in businesses where failure to meet cleaning needs does not cause harm to people (employees or users) or disruption to products/services is low; in these cases, either cleaning is not needed, or it can be easily obtained. As an example, standard manufacturing businesses like furniture or stock mechanical parts producers normally do not have to concern themselves overmuch with cleaning uniforms and tools used during the manufacturing process. This dimension involves standard cleaning solutions.

2.The Medium High-Risk Dimensions 

The medium-high risk dimension arises in businesses where a failure to meet cleaning standards can result in disruption of products/services and/ or in customer and user health Issues. Industries in this range include hospitals and nursing homes, where it is important to grant hygiene to avoid infections risks and a particular attention is given to linen and professional clothing; but also Ho.Re.Ca. and food production in general, where the risks of infections are smaller, but the service provided can be highly compromised by hygiene issues. In this dimension, we talk about hygiene, in terms of both the product and the operational environment.

3. The specific-risk dimension for specific needs

The specific-risk dimension occurs when cleaning needs go beyond the usual standards and technologies available in the market, and require both special technologies and an approach based in a clear vision of laundry and a deep understanding of the processes. In such situations entire batches of a valuable product may be destroyed or people may be seriously harmed by failures in the cleaning system. The aforementioned “cleanrooms” in microelectronics production are an example of the first issue, while health protection for firefighters is an examples of the second one. In this dimension, simple solutions for cleaning or hygiene are no longer enough.

What is HACCP?

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, and it is a Food Safety Management System in the food chain. In many countries, HACCP is mandatory for businesses with contamination risks such as food processing industries. Electrolux Professional laundry solutions have received HACCP certification from HACCP International, proving that these products are safe for use in the food industry and helping to achieve HACCP standard. This certification usually applies to food service equipment; HACCP laundry solutions emphasizes the crucial role laundry has in preventing contamination. It has also set the Electrolux Professional laundry standards as the highest across the globe. Also, food business professionals that formerly had to outsource their laundry operations to guarantee their HACCP compliance can now rely on Electrolux Professional laundry equipment to bring those operations safely in-house.

Technologies for Different Levels of Cleaning Needs

Level 1:
Standard Industrial Cleaning/Low Risk

At this level, there is little or no risk connected to failures in cleaning, and almost none of the companies with the need for this level of cleaning use special technologies. Cleaning services are outsourced to specialized  companies, using professional washers and dryers.

The technology issues here are strictly business related:
• consumption of energy, water and consumables
• cleaning and sanitation performance
• machine lifetime
• connectivity of appliances and general
ergonomics
• after sales assistance

Level 2:
Barrier Washers/Medium-High Risk

This needs level encompasses medium-to-high risks, where considerable economic loss in products and harm to people come into the picture.

Many companies at this level consider cleaning to be a strategic operation, so they often have their own in-house cleaning facility. The best technology to address cleaning needs in these cases is the barrier washer: a  professional laundry solution aimed at preventing cross-contamination and assuring total cleaning of all sorts of linen and uniforms. In a barrier washer laundry solution, the machine is built into a wall between two separate rooms connected only by the washer. Soiled laundry is loaded into the washer from one room, and unloaded only when clean from the other. This procedure assures that a clean load never comes into contact with a dirty load, thus preventing cross-contamination and failures in the cleaning process.

Setting up a barrier washer solution is not just a matter of choosing the right appliance (basing the decision on the same parameters as the ones for level 1 appliances); it requires the organisational spaces for this option, and the procedures to correctly operate it.

Level 3:
Comprehensive cleaning facilities/Specific Needs

This is the highest level of cleaning need,  where human lives are at stake either immediately or in the long run. In this case, setting up a barrier washer laundry solution is not enough: special needs areinvolved, and depending on the case, the washing procedure itself may be insufficient. Particular decontamination procedures, or the necessity to have separate washing processes for different gear and equipment underpin the pursuit of comprehensive solutions, requiring different appliances to be used in the cleaning cycle. Still, the most important issue here is the washing technology involved: when the objective is decontamination each case must be addressed individually, with an in-depth analysis of the required outcomes. This often leads to customised technological development, such as the creation of totally new laundry appliances, suitable for solving complicated decontamination issues. We will showcase one such development in the case history related to this paper: the application of a liquid carbon dioxide operating washer to implement a special decontaminating solution.