Case Study

The Brief

The customer, a global fast food chain, were frustrated by the performance of their current products and asked SYR to assess their existing products and procedures. We were challenged to find alternative products that would provide a solution to the high volume of equipment that was breaking and the high volume of equipment usage within their restaurants.

Actions

Our first task was to understand the environment, identify the current range of equipment and observe how it was being used. By experiencing the working practices first-hand and completing detailed assessments across a network of restaurants, we were able to identify the reasons that the current equipment was not suitable for the task. The main issues were the durability of the equipment being used and the effectiveness of this equipment, however this was further compounded by operatives’ daily cleaning practices.

The customer also laundered mop heads and wanted a product that would not shrink. The mop head also needed to be able to absorb greasy deposits easily, but release these deposits effectively during immersion in the bucket system. Cotton mops were completely unsuitable, as they had a lifespan of only a few days and during this time they would rot, decompose and have an awful smell.

With our customers’ agreement, we identified 4 key area that we would address, these were:

• non-ergonomic traditional Kentucky buckets that were unsuitable,

• lobby pans, used to collect debris from front of house, that were constantly breaking,

• brooms, used to collect debris from front of house, that failed to collect debris and

• cotton mops with a short lifespan and ineffective cleaning result.

Lobby dustpans were frequently being damaged due to operatives putting their foot on top of the lobby dustpan to sabilise it for sweeping litter into. This led to many lobby pans shattering in use. SYR invented a blend of plastics which we incorporated into the deisgn of our Lobby Dustpan; with a rubberised content which maintained the strength, whilst giving the product flexibility, allowing it to withstand the stabilising foot action.

Our Research and Development team totally redesigned the blend of yarn to create a mop that would last up to 3 months. The result was Syrtex – a washable, non-shrink blended yarn with improved pick-up and release of dirt.

Benefits

•  Products manufactured to customers exact requirements
• Safer working environment
• Reduction in water consumption
• Less plastic being sent to landfill
• Lower carbon footprint
• Cost in use savings: (Cotton mop = 21.5p per day vs Syrtex = 2.5p a day)
• (Non SYR bucket = 14p per day vs LTS = 2P per day)

SYR is proud to say we have worked with this customer for over 3 decades, demonstrating our commitment to buliding successful partnerships and our ability to provide unique, fit-for-purpose products based on our customers’ needs.