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The Power of Maintenance: Keeping Public Facilities Safe, Functional, and Welcoming

Regular maintenance isn’t just about fixing what’s broken—it’s about preventing issues, enhancing user experience, and ensuring cost-effective facility management.

Regular maintenance is the cornerstone of safe, functional, and welcoming public facilities. Neglecting routine upkeep can lead to safety hazards, diminished user experience, and escalating repair costs. At Service Management Systems (SMS), we understand the critical role that comprehensive maintenance plays in preserving the integrity and appeal of public spaces.

Ensuring Safety and Compliance

A well-maintained facility is a safe facility. Regular inspections and timely repairs prevent minor issues from becoming significant hazards. Promptly addressing roofing problems or deteriorating façades mitigates risks associated with structural failures. Consistent maintenance also ensures compliance with safety regulations, reducing the likelihood of accidents and related liabilities.

Enhancing User Experience

The condition of public facilities directly impacts user satisfaction. Clean, well-lit, and properly functioning environments foster a positive atmosphere, encouraging repeat visits and community engagement. Conversely, neglected spaces with malfunctioning systems or visible disrepair can deter users and reflect poorly on the managing organization.

Cost-Effective Asset Management

Investing in preventive maintenance is financially wise. Proactively addressing wear and tear extends the lifespan of facility assets and reduces the need for costly emergency repairs. Implementing a structured maintenance program allows for better budgeting and resource allocation, ultimately saving money in the long term.

Comprehensive Maintenance Services by SMS

At SMS, we offer a full spectrum of maintenance services tailored to the unique needs of high-traffic public facilities. Our offerings include:

• Asset Management: Identifying, tracking, and analyzing physical assets to optimize performance and longevity.
• Work Management: Coordinating tasks from new equipment installations to corrective and preventive maintenance work orders.
• Preventive Maintenance: Schedule tasks based on fixed dates, usage metrics, or specific routes to prevent equipment failures.
• Materials Management: Monitoring and controlling inventory with automatic replenishment to ensure necessary parts are always available.
• Purchasing: Handling purchase orders and quotations to procure the right parts, track deliveries, and manage receipts efficiently.
• Patching and Painting: Maintaining a professional appearance through regular upkeep of surfaces.
• Lighting Upkeep: Ensuring well-lit environments enhances safety and comfort for staff and visitors.
• Tile Repair and Replacement: Addressing flooring issues promptly to minimize liability risks and maintain aesthetic standards.

By entrusting your facility’s maintenance to SMS, you ensure that every detail receives careful attention, allowing you to focus on your core operations with confidence.

Regular maintenance is not merely a routine task but a strategic approach to facility management that safeguards visitors, enhances experiences, and optimizes resources. Partnering with experienced professionals like SMS ensures that public facilities remain assets to the communities they serve.

The Importance of Proper PPE

PPE is vital to our company process. Here’s why!

At Service Management Systems (SMS), ensuring a safe and healthy work environment is our top priority. One of the most essential ways we protect our employees is through the proper use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). No matter the facility, PPE is a crucial barrier against hazards such as chemicals, airborne particles, and physical injuries. Understanding and consistently wearing the proper PPE is not just a requirement—it’s a responsibility that safeguards employees, customers, and the entire workplace.

Why PPE Matters

PPE shields employees from workplace hazards that could cause illness, injury, or long-term health issues. Exposure to harmful substances, sharp objects, or airborne contaminants can pose serious risks, making PPE an essential line of defense. At SMS, we require employees to wear PPE daily to ensure compliance with industry regulations and maintain the highest safety standards.

Proper PPE use prevents immediate injuries and contributes to long-term health and well-being. For example, slip-resistant shoes help avoid workplace falls, gloves protect against exposure to cleaning chemicals, and face shields reduce the risk of contamination. These protective measures ensure employees can perform their jobs effectively while minimizing health risks.

Essential PPE for SMS Employees

Depending on their role and work environment, employees may be required to wear various types of PPE, including:

• Slip-Resistant Footwear: These shoes are required at all times while working indoors. They provide stability and prevent accidents on slippery surfaces. Outdoor workers may need insulated or waterproof boots for added protection.
• Respiratory Protection: N95 respirators, surgical masks, and face shields help protect employees from airborne particles, especially in critical infection control settings.
• Gloves: Employees handling cleaning products must wear latex or non-latex gloves to prevent skin irritation or chemical burns. Specialty gloves, such as heat-resistant or cold-weather gloves, may be required for specific tasks.
• Eye and Face Protection: Safety glasses or goggles shield the eyes from debris, dust, and chemical splashes, ensuring optimal protection when handling hazardous materials.
• Protective Clothing: Employees working outdoors should layer appropriately with insulated jackets or water-resistant outerwear to stay safe in extreme weather conditions.

Commitment to Safety

PPE is only effective when used correctly. Employees must know where to find PPE at their site, how to wear it properly, and how to maintain or dispose of it afterward. Site Managers are key in ensuring that all employees receive training on PPE usage and compliance. Proper hand hygiene before and after handling PPE is essential to maintaining a safe and sanitary workplace.

At SMS, we are committed to providing our employees with the knowledge, training, and resources they need to stay protected. By following PPE guidelines, we safeguard our health and uphold the highest standards of cleanliness and safety for the facilities we serve.

The Benefits of Our Customer Support Center

What Does Help From our Customer Support Center Mean For You?

When it comes to running a large public space, we at Service Management Systems understand that it is truly a feat to keep everything running smoothly. That’s why we provide access to our Customer Support Center (CSC) for all our accounts. Our CSC is based out of our headquarters in Nashville, TN, where we have a staff of experts ready to take care of you and your needs. From payroll to risk management, our CSC resources will be ready to support you when you choose SMS.

When paired with our top-of-the-line housekeeping and maintenance services, the benefits our accounts receive from our Customer Support Center are not just the icing on the cake – they’re the support needed to take your public facility operations to the next level. You’ll have the time to focus on other important areas when you let us take care of employee vetting, ensuring employment requirements are met, invoicing is accurate, and handling any claims from workers’ comp to compliance challenges. That way, you can count on a clean, safe, and well-supported facility with SMS.

Here are some areas of support you can expect when working with SMS!

Risk and Liability

When businesses partner with SMS, they gain valuable risk management benefits that help mitigate both operational and financial risks. SMS provides companies with robust tools to monitor and manage potential risks, ensuring that their operations run smoothly and safely. Our support team is equipped to assist with risk management strategies, ensuring that all janitorial and maintenance operations comply with industry standards and regulatory requirements.

By partnering with us, companies can rest assured that we are handling workers’ compensation, safety protocols, and any property damage concerns that may arise during cleaning tasks. Our proactive approach helps minimize potential risks, offering peace of mind to businesses while allowing them to focus on their core operations without the added burden of managing complex liability issues.

Built-in Human Resources Team

Businesses that choose to work with SMS gain the support of our experienced HR team, which provides a wealth of expertise to streamline their workforce management. One key benefit is our comprehensive pre-employment screenings, which ensure that only the most qualified and reliable candidates are hired.

Our HR team conducts thorough background checks, verifying qualifications, past employment, and criminal history, significantly reducing the risk of hiring individuals who may pose a liability to your business. This attention to detail helps create a more dependable and trustworthy workforce, fostering a safer work environment for both clients and employees. In addition to pre-employment screenings, we are committed to maintaining positive employee relations throughout the entire partnership.

You can expect our HR team to work closely with employees and employers to address concerns, resolve conflicts, and promote a healthy, productive workplace culture. Furthermore, we ensure full compliance with employment laws, keeping businesses up to date with ever-changing regulations regarding wages, benefits, and workplace safety. By handling these critical HR functions, SMS allows our customers to focus on their operations, confident that they are meeting legal requirements and maintaining a strong, harmonious workforce.

Billing and Invoicing

Gaining the support of our dedicated Billing Department plays a crucial role in ensuring that your invoicing process is smooth, consistent, and reliable. Our team is committed to providing accurate and timely invoices, giving you one less thing to worry about. Whether your business requires monthly billing cycles, project-based invoices, or detailed service breakdowns, our department can accommodate various types of invoicing to meet your unique needs. This flexibility helps businesses maintain clear financial records and stay on top of budgeting without the stress of managing complex billing systems on their own.

In addition to reliable invoicing, the CSC Billing Department is adept at handling any discrepancies that may arise. If there are any issues or questions regarding a bill, our team conducts thorough research to resolve the matter efficiently and accurately. We understand that billing discrepancies can cause delays and frustration, so we prioritize quick, transparent communication to ensure that any issues are addressed promptly. By working with SMS, businesses can feel confident that their invoicing is in good hands, freeing them to focus on their core operations while we handle the details.

Payroll

As a customer of SMS, gaining the support of our payroll department brings a wealth of benefits that go far beyond just processing payments.

Payroll accuracy is non-negotiable. With SMS, you can rest easy knowing that your employees receive the correct pay on time, every time. Our team utilizes advanced systems and a keen eye for detail to ensure that every paycheck reflects the right calculations, deductions, and compliance with local laws.

Payroll can be complex, with constantly changing tax laws, benefits regulations, and other compliance requirements. As part of the SMS family, you’ll have a team of experts ready to support you, who stay up-to-date with industry changes. Our professionals bring years of experience and knowledge to the table, ensuring that you’re always in good hands.

By partnering with SMS, you’re not just outsourcing payroll — you’re gaining a trusted ally with the resources and expertise to help your business thrive.

At Service Management Systems, we know that managing a large public space comes with its challenges, and these are some of the many ways we help to make it easier. With these benefits from our dedicated Customer Support Center, you’ll have a team of experts by your side to assist you–Whatever It Takes!

Sustainability: It’s not just for the Environment

An eco-friendly janitorial firm can make a difference in your facility

Sustainable lifestyles and work procedures play a crucial role in preserving the health of our planet. By adopting practices that minimize environmental impact, we can contribute to the longevity of ecosystems and the overall well-being of future generations. At SMS, we hold sustainability as an important value, emphasizing its importance in every facet of our operations.

There are many reasons to hire a janitorial company that practices sustainable cleaning that will improve the health and safety of the people in your public facility, maintain a positive environment that draws people to your location, and protect your company’s bottom line.

A few sustainable practices we use are outlined below, and you should consider incorporating them into your own routines as well. Here’s a closer look at some of the methods we implement:

Enhance Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

Cleaning for improved IAQ requires following the science. Green cleaning products, which contain fewer hazardous Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), lessen human VOC exposure compared to standard cleaning products. Research has linked VOCs to long-term health hazards, including chronic asthma, lung disease, and lung cancer. Studies show that the use of “green” cleaning may improve indoor air quality.

At SMS, the use of sustainable cleaning agents meeting the requirements outlined in LEED-EB O&M ensures that VOC exposures are reduced. We deliver our green cleaning products via automatic chemical dispensing, which prevents over-concentrated chemical misuse. Likewise, it also prevents an “under-mixing” of the chemical, which affects its ability to perform and disinfect.

Our vacuums use HEPA filters to reduce dust and microbes left in carpets and in the air. With our daily vacuuming, this filter reduces the soil and cleans carpets with a powerful brush and suction motor, lowering the total project requirements for carpet extraction.

Our carpet extractors are certified by the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI), an independent laboratory that tests and certifies carpet products and carpet technology for quality and low VOC emissions. When carpet extraction is required, CRI-Certified carpet extractors require minimal chemicals and hot water, where appropriate. It is common to find that carpets in high-traffic facilities have far too much chemical buildup from overuse. Our first step in fixing this issue is hot water extracting of all carpets where permitted, to reset the chemical composition contained within the fibers and reduce “chemical browning” that can occur. If there is still a need for additional cleaning after our reset, we will use Green Seal carpet extracting, spotting, and pre-sprays that properly treat the carpet but neutralize after use to leave the carpets nearly chemical-free.

Sustainable programs with quality assurance and defined cleaning procedures can enhance indoor air quality and reduce the risk of reputational harm from illness claims in your facility. This also lowers the likelihood that the people who clean your location will call in sick, which can create a vicious circle of understaffing and negatively impact turnover.

Maintain a Positive Environment

When your provider chooses technologically advanced and efficient late-model equipment to clean the floors, escalators, elevators, and other areas in your building, the adverse side effects of using that equipment are significantly reduced. SMS’ partnership with industry-leading equipment manufacturers means we are continuously upgrading to quieter, more efficient equipment that can operate in eco-friendly mode and reduce or eliminate emissions levels and noise.

Our equipment has many functions that remove the need for chemicals at all. For example, in hard floor maintenance, we often strip wax and sealer off floors using high-impact floor pads and orbital scrubbing machines. These machines spin while vibrating, causing a sanding motion in tandem with an aggressive pad and water, removing wax and sealer from the floor without requiring a floor stripper or any harmful chemicals. This process also removes the floor slurry immediately during the pass into the auto scrubber, reducing the chances of slip and fall or any chemical burns. Our daily maintenance uses PH Neutral cleaners that are Green Seal certified to clean all hard surfaces.

Even with more ordinary cleaning tools, using the right products is important. SMS uses the following microfiber products for all of our cleaning approaches:

• Microfiber wipes
• Wet-loop mops
• High dusters
• Flat mops

Microfiber is antimicrobial, making it effective for use in any cleaning. It is durable and can be washed and reused over 300 times. This prevents the waste of “disposable” products that fill trash cans with chemically treated contaminated wipes. Our wipes and flat mops are always stored in solution, ready for use, and never applied back into the solution.

Once removed and wrung to the proper dampness level, we use the wipes and mops until soiled before putting them in a collection bag for washing at the end of a shift. This significantly decreases cross-contamination and improves overall disinfection, making an immediate difference in the health and lives of those who work at and visit your building.

Consistent delivery of an eco-friendly housekeeping routine requires a robust training program and an excellent quality assurance program. Every team member must be properly trained and on board, and regular inspections are necessary. SMS enters daily audits into OPS360, our customized Quality Assurance system, to check our adherence to our environmentally friendly programs. These results can be openly shared with our customers in real-time.

Save Money with Sustainable Practices

The days of choosing between cost savings and sustainable practices are behind us. With proper training, your service provider’s employees can effectively conserve paper products, select the appropriate cleaning cloths and tools for each task, and minimize water usage—all of which positively impact the bottom line.

If your janitorial provider is using efficient new state-of-the-art plug-in or battery-operated machinery for tasks such as vacuuming, carpet cleaning, or hard floor burnishing, your electricity bills will be lower. Also, your building will be safer because your floors will be cleaner, which will minimize your risk exposure.

SMS has extensive experience with a wide range of energy-efficient equipment that utilize technologies such as Absorbent Glass Mat (AGM) batteries, which have a fine glass fiber separator between the positive and negative plates that helps absorb all the battery acid. They require no maintenance or cord, have low energy consumption, and last significantly longer than conventional batteries. Our national partners recycle all of our batteries when replacement is required.

When your provider uses green cleaning products, they opt for eco-friendly, more concentrated alternatives. This means that, when applied correctly, smaller quantities are needed to achieve effective results, ultimately reducing overall supply costs.

Another money-saver is providing your visitors with easy opportunities to contribute to waste reduction in your facility. We have found the key to our success in minimizing waste and significantly increasing recycled product collection is ensuring the full availability of choices for recycling an item versus disposing of it in the trash. Clean and clearly marked containers give the visitor easy choices when they have the opportunity to recycle.

Clean water is not only a cost but also a limited natural resource. At SMS, our power washing equipment has water/chemical reclaiming ability to prevent contamination of nearby rainwater drains, which not only saves the environment but also reduces your water bill.

Eco-Friendly is a Solid Business Plan

Being sustainable is an all-around winning formula for cleaning and maintaining a healthy environment in your facility. It’s a rock-solid opportunity to improve your building’s IAQ, overall environment, and bottom line. We look forward to discussing the details with you.

Outsource your Janitorial & Maintenance to SMS

Five good reasons, just for starters

There are a whole lot of puzzle pieces that must fit together effectively to ensure your large public-facing facility runs smoothly, and janitorial and maintenance are two of the bigger (and potentially messier) ones. In this ever-changing industry, a specialist like Service Management Systems, Inc. (SMS) is built to be the most effective, adaptable, and cost-efficient option for reliable, continuous results.

At SMS, we understand that anything can happen anytime or anywhere in your large public building. That’s why we always have managers and/or supervisors available (24/7 if necessary), properly trained employees, leadership support, the best equipment and supplies, and our OPS360 Quality Assurance technology ready to deal with any issue in the most prompt and effective manner possible.

With that professional confidence in mind, here are five excellent reasons to hire SMS as your custodial and/or maintenance service provider to your airport, school, mixed-use, retail, entertainment, medical, or other large public-facing facility:

1. We’re Industry Experts

This is all we do. That means our training, processes, equipment, supplies, and people are all designed to bring you the very best in cutting-edge service. It’s a lot more than a mop and a broom, and we live and learn it better every day.

Good people are our most important asset. We find, hire, and train the best – hard-working, conscientious, and friendly employees. We understand that our people are an extension of your people, and that we represent you and your facility.

Public facility housekeeping is a science, and learning how to perform different tasks based on proper technique and procedure results in cleaning for health and safety, not just visual appearance.

Proper service requires industry-specific expertise. An excellent janitorial contractor has a deep talent pool of executives and subject matter experts to provide the support your facility demands. You won’t need to divert someone from one of your other teams, or go outside and find a consultant or additional third-party, to provide support in matters such as HR, Quality Assurance, Safety Training, and much more.

Our training program is continuously updated and improved. Our employees are trained not only upon hire but throughout their careers.

Technology is constantly changing, and the equipment and supplies used in your facility should be the most effective, efficient, and environmentally friendly available. At SMS, we research and experiment with everything available in public housekeeping, and only bring the best and most appropriate tools and supplies into your location.

2. Safety is our Top Priority

Proper safety procedures matter to all parties, and a professional company will always prioritize safety and its potential impact on people, your location, and your reputation.

At SMS, our goal is to create a safety culture. We clean for the safety of the people who work in and visit your public facility – not just to make it “look” clean. SMS works to maintain a level of clean that reduces slip-and-fall cases, keeps germ growth under control, and lowers your overall liability.

Our Safety Matters! Program complies with OSHA standards and requires that each SMS facility must have a Safety Committee in place. The program promotes a smarter way of working by pausing to consider the hazards of each task and then acting in a way to avoid those hazards. A good provider always does things the right way, which is not necessarily the easiest or fastest way.

Each month, our SMS team members receive a Safety Talk Topic to review, analyze, discuss, and then develop solutions in their daily job duties. These Safety Talks are used in conjunction with Safety Committee meetings to bring our Safety Matters! Program to the forefront of our daily operations. The topic typically pertains to current facility needs or the overall work environment.

SMS’ SafePersonnel Program keeps staff up-to-date by using a straightforward training platform (videos, training modules, and tests). We are continuously creating customized training videos that amplify our existing training process. These training courses can be completed in a group setting to maximize feedback, interaction, and team-building, or assigned individually.

To learn more about our multi-pronged approach to safety, see our blog at https://www.smsclean.com/blog/safety-matters/.

3. We Pass our Cost Efficiencies Forward

Cost savings that result from business efficiency and volume are passed on to you, our partner.

As a larger firm, SMS is able to distribute the costs associated with custodial management and subject matter expert salaries, quality assurance (and other) software, safety programs, and other capital costs across several accounts, not just yours.

And with a solid business reputation, strong financial statements, and a customer portfolio earned during 36+ years in business nationwide, SMS has agreements with equipment and supply providers that result in cost savings, sourcing options, and repair service response times that will exceed what you can get independently. This allows us to pass on savings from our purchasing power to you.

4. Our Administrative Support is your Security Net

Each industry has its own liability and insurance issues, and SMS has deep expertise in matters involving housekeeping and maintenance.

As leaders in our industry, we have specialists across all necessary areas of responsibility to ensure that you don’t have to worry about supporting the services we take on for you.

SMS has a Customer Support Center in its centrally-located Nashville Headquarters that provides a deep pool of talent in the following departments:

• Human Resources
• Risk Management
• Legal
• Payroll
• Accounting
• Finance
• Information Technology/Information Services
• Billing
• Marketing

A first-rate provider will have all the essential insurance coverage, workers’ compensation, professional know-how, and everything else required to lessen your risk, expense, and company man-hours. This must be earmarked for dealing with legal or liability responsibilities that could crop up across a spectrum of facility-level issues.

Your HR/Recruiting department(s) have enough challenges. By passing responsibility for recruiting, hiring, motivating, and maintaining a stable janitorial workforce onto SMS, you can confidently transfer an important responsibility onto a qualified specialist’s shoulders.

5. Our Depth and Breadth of Services

SMS also offers ancillary services including maintenance, power washing, and housekeeping surveys and consulting.

Consider also contracting out maintenance to your housekeeping company, because the same provider can offer a depth of experience in both areas of expertise, along with in-depth knowledge of your unique facility.

This can save your company money because your maintenance provider will already know your property and will be providing an add-on service, thereby making it safer and easier for them to provide you with a more reasonable maintenance rate. This also creates efficiency and realizes the synergy that exists from using a maintenance company that understands your property’s unique issues, because SMS housekeeping employees get to really know your property from working there every day.

Whether you’re on the job, watching a movie at home, or out of town on business or pleasure, it’s vital to know the people who clean and maintain your public facility are always “on it,” no matter what surprises lie ahead.

There are more good reasons to consider onboarding a third-party provider for your housekeeping and/or maintenance services, and we’d be happy to share them with you.

And if you already have an outsourced provider, but it’s not quite working out the way you expected, SMS can help you figure out what’s wrong and provide you with a cost-competitive program that will improve your facility’s safety and cleanliness.

Either way, contact us at info@smsclean.com, and we’d be happy to learn about your location and chat about how we can best serve you. Because sometimes, it’s better to let the experts do what they do best and stay focused on your core business.

Beyond the Surface: The Science Behind Expert Floor Care

Top Five Benefits of a Professional Floor Care Plan

Who hasn’t seen a worker riding or pushing an auto scrubber inside a public facility and wondered if perhaps anyone who can steer a riding lawnmower or push a grocery cart could do that job?

At Service Management Systems, Inc. (SMS), we believe it’s important to understand that proper floor care involves a little bit more than what we notice at a casual glance.

SMS has been cleaning and maintaining all kinds of flooring in large public-facing buildings across the U.S. since 1988. From malls to schools to airport passenger terminals to hospitals, we’ve earned the trust of the people who manage these facilities. While providing expert floor care in over 75 public facilities in 28 states, we make sure that a clean and safe facility starts on the ground floor.

There are many reasons the housekeeping company at your public-facing building needs to be a floor care expert. At SMS, we believe our experience, processes, and workforce make us experts, and here is our list of the Top Five Benefits of a Professional Floor Care Plan:

1. Improves Safety and Health: We make safety and health our Top Priority. Proper floor maintenance cuts down on slip and fall and workers’ compensation cases while improving Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). By cleaning the right way at proper frequencies, SMS makes floors safer and the air your tenants and customers breathe cleaner, because germs that grow on your floor impact IAQ throughout your building.

2. Leaves Customers Impressed: A floor care expert like SMS will keep your floor’s finish looking fabulous year-round. This leaves quite an impression and sends a message that cleanliness and professional appearance matter in your facility.

3. Provides Cost Savings: It is much cheaper to hire an expert like SMS to preserve your flooring than to replace it altogether or lose your warranty coverage through improper maintenance.

4. Removes Scuffs and Scratches: Your current crew may be focusing on the dirt and grime that gathers on the surface of your flooring. But at SMS, we also work on the scuffs and scratches caused by foot traffic, heavy boxes, machinery, etc., that might seem impossible to remove, but actually are not – making floors look new again.

5. Ensures use of the Proper Tools and Cleaners: Your current crew may be using the wrong type of equipment and/or the wrong cleaners for your type of floor. Hiring an expert like SMS means your flooring will be serviced using the proper types of equipment with cleaners that are safe and effective.

Cleaning for health and safety has long been our primary focus at SMS, and recent research indicates that proper floor maintenance does much more than prevent the slip and fall we remember fondly from our childhood cartoon days.

It’s been shown that a clean floor improves Indoor Air Quality, reducing the spread of germs.

ISSA: The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association points out, “As the largest horizontal surface in a building, the floor is a breeding ground for all types of germs and contaminants. Appropriate cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting guidelines and regular floor maintenance are key components to successful infection-risk mitigation.”

While on the “surface,” floor cleaning may seem pretty simple, it actually requires a structured routine of regular maintenance specific to each floor type. Everyday efforts such as carpet vacuuming and hard floor mopping are essential, but so are scheduled maintenance (like hard floor buffing and burnishing) and scheduled restorative floor care, such as stripping and finishing, specific to each type of hard flooring.

Whether it’s an airport passenger terminal, school, indoor mall, medical building, or office building, each facility SMS cleans has unique floor care needs, with variables such as foot traffic volume, temperature, humidity, and sunlight helping us determine individual cleaning and maintenance programs and scheduling a frequency for each process.

With every new contract, we start by purchasing the appropriate brand-new state-of-the-art commercial floor cleaning equipment that is quiet, efficient, and effective. SMS has close relationships with major brands and dealers, which means that when our equipment needs repair, we can quickly obtain any necessary parts and/or repair expertise with minimal downtime.

Karcher supplies much of the heavy equipment that we utilize throughout our network.

“Karcher’s goal with SMS is to offer a customized approach to each and every project,” said David Solis, Karcher National Account Manager. “Karcher analyzes each site and makes suggestions to maximize productivity and ensure the best ROI is achieved.”

When Karcher equipment is in need of service, their response time is within 24-48 hours with technicians in vans throughout the country. The goal is to get the unit up and running as quickly as possible to avoid precious downtime.

SMS’ CARPET CLEANING PROCESS

One of the most important factors in maintaining and prolonging the lifespan of your carpeting is to vacuum, vacuum, vacuum as often as possible.

Our basic carpet care training program includes detailed instructions on all of the following processes:

• vacuuming
• spot removal
• bonnet cleaning
• carpet extraction

All these processes begin every time with complete carpet preparation, such as mandatory “CAUTION, WET FLOOR” signs wherever appropriate.

Although many people who walk into a janitorial job are capable of pushing a vacuum around, that doesn’t mean they know how to do it properly for best results. Nor does it mean they understand spot removal. As to bonnet cleaning and carpet extraction, those are specialized procedures that have been perfected at SMS through experience, spelled out carefully in a written manual, and taught and re-taught to our employees at the facility level.

The devil is always in the details when it comes to processes like this.

For example, not all bonnet pads are created equal. And, it’s important to practice a lifecycle plan for when they are turned over, washed, and replaced.

Extraction is the deep-cleaning process typically done after the carpeting has received about four to five bonnet cleaning applications. However, a facility’s foot traffic needs to be taken into account when determining the extraction schedule and frequency for each carpeted area.

Another differentiating step is the after-extraction process. At SMS, this includes bonneting with a dry pad to not only remove surface dirt but also to speed up the drying process by creating heat as the bonnet machine passes over the carpet fibers.

SMS’ HARD FLOOR CLEANING PROCESS

For hard floors such as tile, stone, hardwood, and composites like terrazzo, sweeping and dust mopping are daily jobs at SMS, with auto scrub burnishing on a regular schedule.

Burnishers are an important piece of hard floor equipment at SMS. The floor buffing process restores gloss and enhances shine by removing black marks, polishing, and making damaged or scratched surfaces smooth again.

One of the consumables SMS will use on a case-by-case basis is an approved floor restorer, sometimes as often as once a week or more, based on desired gloss levels and traffic in the area being worked. The restorer can help fill in microscopic scratches before the burnishing process, and extend the life of the wax.

Floor stripping is a specialty of our project teams, which usually work evening or night shifts. This process removes the old finish completely, followed by all-new floor finish, and is scheduled in concert with our customer during a time frame when the building is closed, or the flooring being restored is off-limits to the public for a set time period.

The process of stripping and applying a new finish is a significant expense and time investment that requires a lot of planning, communication, coordination, and training. Issues for consideration include the following: only 50% of a common area should be completed at one time (to ensure there is always a dry side for safe passage); and start and end points, cut-offs, and transition lines will matter when the project is complete.

Experience and planning are essential, and instructions on which floor area should be worked during each phase must be carefully plotted out. For example, stripper chemical “bleeds” onto adjacent tiles, which requires meticulous prep work and a practiced team.

BEYOND THE SURFACE: FLOOR CARE SCIENCE MEANS SAFETY

These examples highlight just a few of the challenges met by SMS regarding ongoing floor care, and why it requires much more than a mop, a pail…and an auto scrubber.

Only larger companies like SMS can bring the mojo on financial strength, experience, and the documented procedures necessary for continuous success at your facility. But teamwork is what brings it all together. At SMS, we strive to hire the right employees and create the culture that breeds the teamwork necessary to provide first-class results on a consistent basis.

We always remember that at the end of a long hard workday, it’s all about the safety of the people who use your public facility – and riding on that auto scrubber is just a tiny peek into the process.

Safety Matters!

At SMS, our multi-pronged safety approach is a daily priority

Everyone benefits from a safe work environment. Although it’s a never-ending responsibility – don’t we all shudder at the ancient Greek myth about the eternal task of pushing the boulder up the hill – we know how important it is to maximize safety in your public facility. You may never get to the top and be able to declare “mission accomplished,” but with a consistent commitment and constant effort, you’ll certainly realize that your mission has purpose.

Employees who aren’t trained on how to work safely and don’t know how to take the necessary precautions will not be able to maximize safety for themselves, their co-workers, and the people in your facility. We believe that workers who use janitorial chemicals, paint, any tools, scissor lifts, or many other supplies or equipment during routine or special project work in housekeeping and maintenance duties should do so in a safety-first training protocol and environment.

At SMS, we not only preach safety. We also teach it, live it, and look for the dangerous spots in your facility. Every day.

SafePersonnel Training Platform

From new hires to old hands, our SafePersonnel Training Platform ensures that initial training happens and re-training continues at your facility. At SMS, the only time we cut a corner is when our maintenance crew is painting inside your facility.

SafePersonnel can be accessed from any of our company-issued smart devices, allowing our management to keep staff up-to-date by utilizing a straightforward training platform (videos, training modules, and tests).

We are continuously creating customized training videos for both New Hire Training and Annual Recurring Training that will amplify the training process we already have in place. These training courses can be completed in a group setting to maximize feedback, interaction, and team-building, or assigned individually.

Employees must pass all required training courses within a specific timeframe (see screenshots below).

Safety Matters! Program

Our Safety Matters! Program was built around training our Facility Managers on the building blocks of workplace safety, and structured as an ongoing training program that we roll out to our entire team at every location. We believe the proper safety tools are as important as the physical tools we use to clean and maintain your public facility.

As a starting point, each SMS facility must have a Safety Committee in place to lead our Safety Matters! Program, which is centered around the slogan, “See it. Own it. Fix it.” The committee must include employees from both facility managers/supervisors and housekeeping employees. Our goal is to create a safety culture for everyone involved in the organization. This program teaches our employees to get back to the basics of safety training. It promotes a smarter way of working by pausing to consider the hazards of each task and then acting in a way to avoid those hazards.

A key component of this committee’s responsibility centers on our Monthly Safety Talk meeting and follow-up actions. Each Facility Manager conducts a mandatory Safety Talk meeting, covering a different Safety Talk topic every month, that has been prepared by our Director of Training and Culture. The entire SMS team at every site will review the monthly Safety Talk topic at each meeting. Our Facility Manager on duty delivers the training materials provided and discusses the safety topic in detail. Team members are encouraged to ask questions, discuss scenarios, and find solutions to common workplace safety issues. SMS employees must then sign off that they have participated and understand the material.

Examples of recent Safety Matters! topics include:

• Bloodborne Pathogens (BBP)
• Fire Safety
• Heat Exhaustion/Illness Prevention
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
• Preventing Slips, Trips, and Falls
• Proper Lifting and Trash Handling Procedures
• Safety Data Sheets
• Severe Weather/Emergency Preparedness
• Workplace Injuries and Reporting

Safety Inspection Checklist

Our Facility Manager must conduct a quarterly inspection of their entire property(s) within the first 15 days of each quarter. This careful and in-depth inspection must be completed with a critical eye using a procedure built into our custom-designed OPS360 Quality Assurance (QA)/Quality Control (QC) technology platform. If requested, this report can be passed on to you, our customer. At SMS, we believe that safety and QA/QC protocols work hand-in-hand. To learn more about the importance of a quality QA/QC program, check out our blog here.

We look beyond “how to clean” and have established and proven programs on Safety, Emergency Preparedness, Indoor Air Quality, and more.

We might never be able to reach the top of the hill and proclaim “mission accomplished,” but we can make sure we are doing everything possible to work safely and prevent injuries or loss of life. And at SMS, that’s not just word scrabble. That’s who we are.

Your Airport should be the gateway to a positive first impression

Happy travelers spend more money in the Passenger Terminal

At Service Management Systems (SMS), we believe your airport gate should actually be called a “gateway.”

A gateway to your Passenger Terminal. To your City. And to your Region.

SMS cleans and sanitizes your gate and your entire passenger terminal to not only ensure the health and safety of your visitors (and the people who work there) – but also to help cultivate happy passengers who will spend more money in your terminal today, and then look forward to their next trip through your airport.

“While airports are doing a good job coping with the current issues, there is still more they could do to improve passenger experience while also improving their own bottom lines. Happy passengers spend a lot more money at the airport, so ongoing efforts to spread passenger volumes throughout the day and deliver superior service at all customer touchpoints will be critical,” according to Michael Taylor, managing director of travel, hospitality, and retail at J.D. Power.

A data analytics and consumer intelligence firm, J.D. Power released its annual 2023 North American Airport Satisfaction Study Sept. 20. It reports there is a direct correlation between overall passenger satisfaction and spending at the airport. Passengers classified as “delighted,” meaning they rate their airport experience as 10 out of 10, spend an average of $44 in the terminal, while those classified as disappointed (1-5 out of 10) spend just $29.

You surely realize that your airport is both a gateway to your region and an economic engine for your local economy, but the J.D. Power study also quantifies how the cleanliness and sparkle of your airport goes straight to your airport’s bottom line.

SMS provides janitorial services at four airports – Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS) in Florida; Lynchburg Regional Airport (LYH) in Virginia; Durango – La Plata County Airport (DRO) in Colorado; and Waterloo Regional Airport (ALO) in Iowa – and we sweat the little things that sometimes aren’t so small to the road-weary traveler. SMS Facility Manager Kevin Kruse routinely gets his hands dirty at Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport, and that allows him to find out firsthand what people actually think about the job we perform there every day.

He said, “We receive plenty of feedback from passengers that come through our facility. Most of it is positive, but sometimes it can be negative, and we strive to do our best. We’re always looking to make improvements because we’re never done cleaning. We’re never thinking, ‘Hey, everything is great and everyone can take a breath.’ There’s always something coming up next, something new, but we work through it as a team.

“When we walk through our areas, and we’re out of the office as much as we can be, we are always checking in with our team to make sure the assigned areas are on point. A lot of passengers will come up to us and say, ‘Hey, who does the housekeeping here?’ Or they just ask if we work here (and say) ‘I just want to let you know your bathrooms – they are very clean, they look great; we really appreciate it.’ They see us cleaning, and a lot of folks know the effort that goes into it. They really appreciate coming through a facility that smells good and looks good. It means something when someone cares about the area they work in – that they own it. And people recognize that. A quick but genuine kind word goes a long way.”

Everyone notices a sparkling clean restroom (or the opposite). A 2017 Airport Council International ASQ Best Practice Report on Airport Cleanliness showed that 32.1% of the traveling public ranked the Cleanliness of Airport Restrooms as the most important item affecting their airport experience, followed by 23.2% who ranked General Cleanliness of the Airport Terminal.

But at SMS, we follow the science and don’t stop there – providing a consistent level of clean in every corner of your terminal.

For example: we perform a more detailed cleaning/sanitization of high-touch areas throughout both public and employee spaces – such as ticket counters, vending machines, ATMs, courtesy phones, door badge keypads/push-bars, and office phones – to name just a few. Self-check-in customer kiosks are also on that list, and SMS is careful to treat them with the proper chemicals, so as not to damage the screens. The goal is to clean/sanitize these items a couple of times a day, as well as educate our staff on protecting themselves from cold/flu virus exposure (through frequent and proper hand-washing, not touching or rubbing eyes, nose, or mouth, etc.).

As you might expect, not only do travelers notice the different feel of a clean passenger terminal, but so does airport management.

“SMS provides quality work in our high-traffic airport facilities 24/7/365 in all public, secured, and private areas of the airport with emphasis on glass, flooring, and “first impression” areas and constant sweeping, vacuuming, restroom cleaning, stocking, wiping, spot mopping and responding to work order requests,” said Mike Stenson, Destin-Fort Walton Beach Deputy Airport Director. “The local SMS team is well led by their Manager and Supervisors. The employees appear to have a positive attitude, strong work ethic and communicate well with the entire Airport team, which consists of County Airport staff and numerous other tenant organizations.”

Destin-Fort Walton Airport is nestled in an affluent region on Florida’s Gulf Coast, just 30 minutes in either direction from competing airports. To the east is Northwest Beaches International Airport in Panama City, and to the west is Pensacola International Airport. So, taking passengers for granted would be unhealthy for both people and business.

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened both the importance and the awareness of proper cleaning protocol, equipment, and supplies. With that in mind, Destin Airport’s Okaloosa County Airport Administration partnered with SMS in 2021 to create a 60-page Accreditation Proposal and prepare the Airport for reviews and inspections. Destin earned Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC) STAR™ accreditation – which is the gold standard for prepared facilities. It is the cleaning industry’s only outbreak prevention, response, and recovery accreditation for facilities.

We believe that airport janitorial service providers are not all the same. Firsthand data on how passengers spend more when they are “delighted” with your airport gives additional validation to the concept that it pays to choose the correct partner for your facility’s needs.

After all, you only get one chance to make a great first impression.

Preparedness begins with an Emergency Response Plan

Being ready for what could happen doesn’t just happen

September is National Preparedness Month, and a great time to recognize the need to always be ready for severe weather and other emergencies.

At Service Management Systems (SMS), one of our 24/7 goals is to observe the Scout Motto: Be Prepared. Just as a Boy or Girl Scout spends several years learning and implementing the required skills to always Be Prepared, the employees at every SMS location consistently learn about safety and emergency preparedness and strive to implement systems and protocols that allow us always to Be Prepared in an ever-changing and always challenging environment.

As the U.S. grows more crowded with more severe weather extremes, these facts confirm why this approach becomes more critical every year:

• The 2023 mid-year U.S. population is about 339.7 million, with an annual growth rate of 0.7%. According to the U.S. Census Department, coastal population has soared to 29% of the U.S. population, and the population growth rate in counties along the hurricane-vulnerable Gulf of Mexico increased by 150% between 1960 and 2008.
• The number of disasters has increased by a factor of five over the past 50 years. These events are becoming more expensive, but thanks to improved early warnings and disaster management, the number of deaths has decreased almost three-fold, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO graphic below illustrates U.S. 2022 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters:

From 1970 to 2019, weather, climate, and water hazards accounted for 50% of all disasters. Storms (54%) and floods (31%) were the most prevalent cause of recorded disasters. Storms were linked to the greatest loss of life (71%) and economic losses (78%). The U.S. accounts for 38% of global economic losses caused by weather, climate, and water hazards. Wildfires are also on the increase, as are man-made tragedies such as mass violence.

SMS provides housekeeping and/or maintenance services at various major public-facing facilities in 31 states, as shown on the map below, including many locations along the U.S. East Coast, Gulf Coast, and West Coast. Additionally, the West Coast is a region where earthquake procedure is also an essential element of Preparedness.

For all emergency-related situations (severe weather, natural disaster, or a building-specific incident), SMS has an Emergency Response Plan designed to protect the safety of all SMS employees. This also includes a work plan to safely clean up the facility after the emergency has passed (dependent on our individualized agreement with each customer).

“We not only strive to prepare our team members through ongoing training, we also ensure the training is put into practice through our OPS360 quality assurance platform,” said Ashley Shultis, SMS Quality Assurance and Administration Manager. “Our monthly Safety Inspection Checklist aids in identifying any facility or structural hazards prior to an emergency or disaster occurring, so we can communicate these issues to our customers for correction.”

SMS trains on Emergency Preparedness as a detailed monthly Safety Matters Training Topic every year. The plan is reviewed and discussed in site-level staff meetings at all SMS locations and includes the following topics (with a tiny sample of its content):

Before a severe weather emergency

• Tracking Weather Conditions
• Emergency Safety Teams
• Response Teams
• Preparing Your Staff
• Communicating with Your Customer
• Activating the Emergency Response Plan (ERP)

During a severe weather emergency

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION

After an emergency

• Facility Clean-Up Efforts (upon customer request)

Whether it’s a beautiful late-summer day in September, a blustery snow day in January, or an unstable April day with an air mass ripe for tornadic weather, it’s always important to Be Prepared for the next emergency.

Service Management Systems/ Perfection Group has a unique partnership with Greater Clark County Schools

And the result is well-earned success from the challenges of servicing a sprawling Indiana school district

If you have children, you would probably agree that most kids are inherently good, but cleaning up after themselves isn’t always their strong suit. If you don’t have any, just ask a school custodian.

It can be difficult to find, nurture and keep school custodians – especially at a middle or high school, where teenagers often mistreat locker rooms, restrooms, and other areas on school property. When this happens, it’s up to school custodians to clean up the mess, and it’s essential to keep your custodians in the best frame of mind.

“You are constantly letting them know you appreciate what they do,” said Cindi Carnes, Service Management Systems (SMS) Operations Manager at the Greater Clark County Schools (GCCS), a large school district in Southern Indiana

SMS’ Marketing Team had the opportunity to hang around with Cindi and a few of her custodial and maintenance teams for a couple days recently. Here are a few things we learned:

• Work is rarely done in a vacuum. Instead, you’re often sharing a building and working around study hall, choir practice, or parent/teacher night until the second half of the evening shift.
• Managing budgets to provide Class A custodial services to 20 different buildings while protecting the taxpayer’s dollars is kind of like dropping clothespins into a bottle from five feet – it takes practice.
• A teacher who shares an unsolicited and quite vocal “I love our custodians!” as they walk past makes a difference.
• Cleaning can be a downhill effort when your elementary school has a tube slide for kids to get from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor – and you’re carefully sliding down, twisting and contorting your body to sanitize behind you as you go.
• A bird’s nest on school property can hatch a brood of issues if someone thinks they saw baby chicks in it.

This is just a taste of what Cindi experiences every day after she wakes up at 3 am, packs up her funny bone and her get-to-work attitude, and heads out the door. Cindi manages a team of 100+ employees providing custodial and maintenance services to a school district with 20 buildings – 3 high schools, 3 middle schools, 10 elementary schools, 2 administration buildings, and a couple of equipment maintenance service centers.

The GCCS is a sprawling school district immediately across the Ohio River from Louisville, KY, and includes schools in both suburban and rural communities. The district is serviced by the only “Total Facility Solution” contract in Indiana.

You might be tempted to ask: Why does a clean school matter?

And what’s it like to have seven unique custodial teams plus a maintenance team covering such a diverse and geographically broad school district?

“Sixteen schools is really like 16 businesses,” said Chris Gunther, Facility Director at Perfection Group. “Each principal, each school has their own nuances.”

Perfection Group, a Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) company at its core, manages a “Total Facility Solution” for GCCS that includes not only HVAC, custodial, and maintenance, but other services including engineering, roofing, paving, windows, and landscaping. Perfection Group also provides new design on mechanical systems and green energy solutions that often result in considerable energy savings and improved Indoor Air Quality (IAQ).

Perfection Group first met with GCCS CFO Laura Hubinger during the height of the COVID Pandemic, and came in focused on “How do we create clean air?” Laura saw the opportunity to bring even more value through outsourcing certain operations, and things took off from there.

“Outsourcing is a great way to save money, and this District was in a financial crisis,” said Chris. GCCS is a large District, with over 10,000 students, placing it in the Top 25 in Indiana for total enrollment.

The process of putting together the best sub-contractor list to provide a Total Facility Solution was challenging. “It was crazy working with you (SMS) and all our other vendors,” said Chris. “We talked to all of the ‘big ones’ (in custodial & maintenance).”

SMS is the largest sub-contractor in the GCCS Total Facility Solution, and Chris expressed his confidence in the SMS/Perfection Group partnership: “I trust that the people put in place can be counted on. Every problem, we’ve bounced back so fast. I trust them 110% that it’s going to get done.”

Cindi and the entire SMS Leadership Team has worked hard to win over the skeptics created when GCCS decided to farm out its custodial services, while also infusing enthusiastic new employees into the mix.

With the Total Solution contract between GCCS and Perfection Group in place since July 2021, SMS has carefully built a layered team under Cindi’s leadership that has been tailored to improve the company’s performance level, as well as communication with both GCCS and Perfection Group. The current SMS team under Cindi includes a Maintenance Manager, a Facility Custodial Manager, an Assistant Facility Custodial Manager responsible for the evening shift, four “Quad” Leaders (supervisors who work at a base school but also oversee three other schools), and an Administrative Assistant responsible for recruiting workers.

When hiring, “I look for someone who’s passionate about what they’re talking about, has a ready smile and a joke, and is willing to learn,” said Cindi.

Many SMS custodians at GCCS have children or grandchildren in the school system.

“One of the biggest things that makes this team unique is we all have a passion for the student,” said Cindi. “I want (our employees) to ask, ‘If I had a student attending here, would I be happy – or would I be going to the PTA Board?’ (with a complaint).”

Working custodial in a school building is more than just reacting to what’s in store for you around the next corner. For example, Cindi’s team pays attention to social media, such as getting ahead of the curve on the TikTok trends that encourage students to damage school property.

But truth be told: many of the custodial and maintenance tasks in a school building and surrounding property are routine. Everyone wants a clean restroom every time. Every principal wants a clean entrance. Every teacher wants a clean classroom, and every coach wants a clean locker room. Challenges can arise in a school just as quickly as a student can get in trouble, or make you smile.

So, the SMS custodians and maintenance workers who take care of GCCS schools have learned to be flexible, accommodating, and conscientious stewards of not only the school buildings they service and the taxpayers who cover their paychecks – but most importantly – the young people who fill the hallways with laughter and remind them of why they come back to do it all over again another day.

If you’d like to talk to someone about SMS’ accomplishments and challenges faced at GCCS, reach out to Daniel Meyr, V.P. of Business Development, at (615) 961-4310 or dmeyr@smsclean.com.