‘All stakeholders are in control, 24/7'

As a food processing company, Kleendesk gives you an at-a-glance insight into your hygiene performance at any point in time. The online platform provides a real-time overview of technical problems, microbiological statistics, the use of chemicals and identifies any trends in the data; hygiene no longer holds any secrets. Bas Niemeijer from Kleentec: “As a result, you can prevent incidents occurring or escalating.”

If you work together with Kleendesk, the food industry cleaning specialist, then you automatically receive free access to the Kleendesk digital platform as part of the service. Bas Niemeijer is Food & Industry Director at the cleaning company which, along with its 1,100 employees, became part of Facilicom last year. He explains: “Using this software tool, you can record all your scheduled activities – the cleaning programme – as well as the associated quality checks, all the instructions and product information sheets and all cleaning protocols. You no longer need any paper or files; everything is stored in the system and we customise the set-up for each individual customer.”
So it’s a digital logbook, but that’s nothing new, is it? “What makes this system unique,” emphasises Niemeijer, “is that it’s designed exclusively for the food sector – specialised in hygiene. All the stakeholders are involved, the customer dashboard is straightforward, and we don’t sell it separately – it’s all part of our service. We’re on the verge of launching an app version for tablets and it will soon become available for smartphones too, so employees can rapidly access the system without having to log in first.”

Bacteriological problem

In terms of functionality, another handy feature is that you can notify people of any abnormalities and technical problems. An alert is sent as a push notification to the right stakeholder and remains open until it has been dealt with. The stakeholder then provides information about the action that has been taken and cancels the alert. Bas Niemeijer: “As a customer, you can see when an alert has been issued and when it has been resolved, so you’re completely in control.”
One of the stakeholders that is already using the system is Diversey, a Kleentec hygiene partner. Ton van Schaaijk, Key Account Manager for Processed Food at Diversey: “In our case, the cleaning team records the use of cleaning agents and the procedures that are followed. This enables us to monitor that things are being done correctly. If we notice an overuse of chemicals or a bacteriological problem, we can react online and in real time. The same holds true if there is any uncertainty about how an agent should be used; we take action immediately and steer things back on track. Each and every element – no matter how small – is equally important for good hygiene. Even just a small deviation can have major consequences.”

That’s why the supplier is not only focused on supplying cleaning agents. “Agents only work effectively in combination with the right advice, the right application and the right usage, otherwise they aren’t much help. We advise our customers on how best to do that, and also help them to work as economically as possible – using a minimum of energy and water. You should let the chemicals do all the hard work. The online platform brings together our policy in this respect with that of all the other hygiene partners. That’s how you achieve the best results.”

How am I performing in terms of hygiene?

Other stakeholders that are using the system include departments such as quality assurance, the production team, the maintenance department and also the pest control unit. Van Schaaijk: “All the tasks are scheduled – how it must be done and when. Every stakeholder records their actions and deals with notifications. Problems are identified sooner and resolved more quickly. As a customer, you have a real-time view of how you’re performing in terms of hygiene.”
Niemeijer adds: “Kleendesk is set up based on the plan-do-check-act approach. As a manufacturer, once you’ve been using it for a while you can start analysing the data.” He is referring to things like the ability to conduct root cause analysis. Imagine there is ‘yet another’ technical glitch – after all, that’s how it can feel sometimes. In that case, the customer can click on the problem and the history of the problem in the dashboard. That might reveal it to be a recurring issue, e.g. every other Monday morning. This can form the basis for further investigation into why this situation occurs so regularly. Perhaps it can be traced back to human error, caused by an operative in the team. This helps to remove the emotion from the problem (‘not another technical glitch’) and enables it to be resolved more quickly. 

Audit

Bas Niemeijer: “The customer has all the information up to date ready for an audit at any time. If you want, you can even let auditors log onto the system; they will see that everything has been recorded, right down to the ATP tests and agar results, and things like the calibrations and optimisation audits are documented too. These new functionalities in Kleendesk 2.0 now mean that it’s almost impossible for incidents to escalate.”

www.kleentec.nl
www.diversey.com