Cold Jet Report: Nearly Half of Packaging Companies Have Produced Inferior Quality Products Due To Poor Cleaning Practices
Industrial Cleaning Habits & Practices Report provides insights into cleaning practices of organizations in the packaging industry
CINCINNATI - October 2, 2008 - When it comes to the role of cleaning in producing consistent product quality, 49 percent of packaging industry decision makers indicated that their companies had produced poor quality products as a result of a poor cleaning job; this according to Cold Jet's Industrial Cleaning Habits and Practices Report. The report, released today, provides insights into the cleaning habits and practices of organizations in the packaging industry, and covers a broad range of topics from cost and quality to worker health and environmental safety.
While nearly half of those surveyed indicated that production quality had been impacted because of poor cleaning, 81 percent still ranked the effectiveness of their cleaning methods as good, very good or excellent. Nearly 80 percent of companies are cleaning their equipment by hand with more than 55 percent of them opting to use chemicals and solvents as their main cleaning method.
"From the results of our survey, we recognized a clear gap between perception and reality when it comes to effectiveness of cleaning methods and actual product quality, which may indicate a general misunderstanding of the value of cleaning in the manufacturing process." said Stuart Rabkin, chief marketing officer of Cold Jet, LLC. "Companies that consider maintenance and cleaning as an important part of their operations and practices - especially those who have 5S, Six Sigma, and TPM programs - are more likely to embrace best practice cleaning methods because of their direct ability to significantly lower production costs."
In today's manufacturing environment, many companies are implementing lean manufacturing principles to help reduce product costs through improve product quality, less downtime and a lower scrap rate. Among the modern lean manufacturing management methodologies is Total Productive Maintenance, which has a goal of reducing prolonged shutdown times. Unfortunately, more than 69 percent of packaging industry decision makers indicated that they have to completely shut down production to clean their equipment while 41 percent have to dismantle and move equipment to another location to be cleaned, which is time consuming and places both equipment and workers at risk of damage or injury.
Rabkin added, "While we targeted organizations within the packaging industry for this report, these findings are relevant to the majority of manufacturers, including companies in the plastics, rubber, food and beverage and consumer packaged goods industries. Key manufacturing stakeholders, from executives to manufacturing engineers, maintenance managers and contract cleaners will find the information useful. Anyone responsible for reducing costs, improving product quality and worker safety, meeting environmental regulations or maintaining overall cleanliness of equipment and facilities, will benefit from benchmarking their cleaning focus with the habits and practices discussed in our report."
To download the entire Cold Jet Industrial Cleaning Habits & Practices report, please visit: www.coldjet.com/en/library/paper-request.php?paper_id=6036&cmp=pkg_wp.
About Cold Jet
Cold Jet, LLC is the world leader in dry ice blasting and production technology. Since 1986, Cold Jet has been developing innovative production and cleaning solutions ranging from handheld blasting systems to customized engineered solutions that solve a variety of cleaning challenges around the world. Cold Jet offers the largest selection of environmentally responsible dry ice blasting machines, including the award-winning Aero Series and the revolutionary i3 family of precision cleaning systems, which features the company's patented shaved ice and feeder technologies. The company's production equipment is used by every major gas company worldwide to produce the highest density dry ice available. Cold Jet is a private company with global headquarters in Loveland, Ohio and international operations in Europe, Asia, Canada and Mexico. For more information, visit www.coldjet.com.
Cold Jet Media Contact: Kevin Wilson, 513-898-1008, kwilson@kevinwilsonpr.com
