An effective industrial air cleaning system can help bring costs down, maintain product quality, reduce wear and tear on machinery and improve air quality, says Louise Harris.
Dust is all around us and constantly builds up if it is not dealt with. Affecting all large industrial and retail spaces, manufacturing plants and warehouses, it is often all too obvious, with layers of dust covering finished goods and equipment. Generated by production process, particularly those involving powered chemicals or ingredients, plus working practices such as forklift truck operation, the movement of people within a building, truck traffic to and from loading bays, and the influx of environmental dust particulate from outside fields and roads, its presence cannot be avoided.

As dust accumulates, it can have a detrimental effect on machinery, increasing the likelihood of break down and consequential costly downtime. It can also contaminate products and escalate the number of rejected or returned items. Moreover, in facilities with automated equipment dust can affect sensors which in turn can lead to operational failures and increased servicing costs. Additional indirect effects of dust include the impaired performance of existing HVAC equipment, reduced visibility within the facility and higher absenteeism due to the reduced air quality for employees. In fact, for many companies industrial cleaning, as part of a dust management programme, has become an audited part of their health and safety process in order to ensure they are within WHO (World Health Organisation) guidelines and are providing acceptable working conditions for their staff.

So with the consequences of dust accumulation being so wide-ranging and the cost implication so significant, it is clear to see how the elimination of nuisance dust through the installation of an industrial air cleaning system can benefit a company's bottom line. An example helps illustrate the benefits of this. A Zehnder Clean Air Solutions system was installed at a leading worldwide logistics company in Sweden. The system is designed to help achieve savings of up to 30 per cent on annual cleaning costs when using floor care appliances to clean the buildings, increasing to to 70 per cent when cleaning by hand alone.

1. Cleaning costs

With an average cleaning requirement of four hours per day, the company's annual cleaning bill totalled £24,000. Of the four hours cleaning, two were spent using a scrub machine. After installing the Zehnder air cleaning units, the cleaning time using the scrub machine was halved. As a result the company made savings of £6068 pa, reducing its cleaning bill by 25 per cent.

2. Heating and electricity costs

Additional savings were made on heating and electricity. Using ceiling-mounted heating, the installation of the Zehnder units meant that the warm air was being pushed down into the working zone. As a consequence, the company was able to decrease the heating temperature by 3 deg C and reduce energy usage while also achieving better heat distribution throughout the building.

3. Additional savings

With less dust particulate in the machinery, maintenance costs and absenteeism were reduced by an average of 10 per cent per year, making annual costs savings of around £30,000.

4. Overall financial impact

Finally a review of the purchase, running and maintenance costs of the installation shows the immediate and long term financial benefits of dust management. Profitable from day one, the investment in the equipment had an immediate positive effect on the company's bottom line. With the company taking ownership of the units after five years, the increase in profit is almost 10 fold. Add to this the increased cleanliness and better working environment for employees and the results speak for themselves.

With each company's dust management challenges being unique to them, it is advisable to first undergo a premises and dust monitoring survey. Carried out by leading suppliers of dust management systems, the survey will ascertain the precise measurement of airborne particulate across the site and determine how the levels are affected by day-to-day working practices. Once the results are available a bespoke system can then be specified to meet your objectives and ensure a cost effective and cost saving programme for the long term.

• Louise Harris is UK brand manager for Zehnder