I recently had the opportunity to tour an interlocking pavers plant that has been using a DuroVac industrial vacuum for almost 6 years.
It was a good example of what happens when an industrial vacuum becomes more than a piece of cleanup equipment. Over time, this plant integrated the system into its operations, found new applications for it and made it part of how they approach safety and production.
One of their main challenges was a pit underneath a press where material accumulates daily. Before installing the vacuum, the press had to be shut down so employees could go underneath the equipment and shovel the material out manually.
It's a difficult job in a tight space, with the potential for back injuries and other injuries. Another plant within the company was already using an industrial vacuum for the application, so the team brought that best practice into this facility.
Today, the vacuum is connected to the press and cycles on and off throughout production.
The plant recently reached 1,000 days without a safety incident. One vacuum system doesn't create a safety record like that, of course. But eliminating jobs that put people unnecessarily at risk is part of building a strong safety program.
The system has also found uses well beyond its original application.
The team moves it around the plant and has installed additional piping to reach other areas. One example is cleaning slightly damp concrete material from hoppers. If the material is removed while it's still movable, it can be vacuumed out. If it's allowed to harden, the job can require jackhammers and significantly more downtime.
The plant manager gave us a good example of the difference: “We went from being down a shift to back up in two hours.”
That's where the economics of industrial housekeeping become pretty straightforward: Most plants know what their downtime costs. They track production KPIs. They know how many employees are needed for a manual cleanup and how long that work typically takes. If a spill or buildup takes most of a shift to clean manually and the right equipment can reduce that to a couple of hours, there is a real number attached to that difference.
Don't look only at the pile of material you need to clean up today. Look at the labour involved, the access, the downtime, the safety implications and the other places in your plant where the same equipment could be put to work. That's usually where the real value is.
Ready to turn routine cleanup into measurable operational savings? Reach out today for a facility assessment and see what a DuroVac system can do for your plant.
