Cleaning technology is often only associated with eliminating dirt and establishing cleanliness. As a result, it is often seen as an unwanted by-product of certain operational processes, as it has nothing to do with the products a company manufactures. This way of looking at things causes a certain organisational blindness to creep in and the sources of process faults to remain undiscovered. Dirk Jörn Hahn, Head of Professional Sales in Germany at Kärcher, explains, “When customers contact us about these issues, we visit their site to inspect their premises and to interview those involved in existing processes”. This gives us an overview of the situation and enables us to make recommendations that sometimes involve cleaning and sometimes involve other aspects.

The devil is often in the detail. Once a problem has been identified and resolved, it becomes apparent just how much cost has been involved. Every measure that makes processes smoother and reduces downtimes saves an industrial operation hard cash. “The same is true of the pallet vacuum system”, explains Dirk Jörn Hahn. “We have now implemented this across a wide range of facilities and realised that this is relevant to all industries.” The crucial point here is that wooden pallets bring wood chips and coarse dirt into warehouses. That much is obvious and makes cleaning necessary. The fact that the pallets also contaminate data light barriers and thereby cause system failures, however, was only discovered by Kärcher when visiting a customer’s site.

When a pallet underbody vacuum system is installed, wood chips and other dirt particles are brushed off the pallet and vacuumed up before they can enter the warehouse. As dirt is no longer brought inside, the cost and effort involved in maintenance cleaning of warehouses is significantly reduced. Damage to sweepers caused by larger dirt particles occurs much less frequently. Best of all, production failures are reduced to practically zero, as the data light barriers can work cleanly, which means that productivity is also significantly increased.

Kärcher uses an ROI calculator to show customers how investments compare to possible savings. “At the end of the day, it’s the bare figures that count”, explains Dirk Jörn Hahn. “We design suitable systems and give an idea of the return on investment once the project is complete.” Customers benefit from standard systems that can be adapted with piping to suit their specific requirements as well as from the fact that the power of the systems can be adapted to the application in question. “Of course this is different everywhere”, says Dirk Jörn Hahn. “On average, the investment in the necessary vacuum system pays for itself within a year.”