Wipers for large industrial units
October 1st 2004

SCA Hygiene Products’Mark Riley looks at specific issues encountered in large industrial units and discusses how best to deal with them

Awide range of industrial wipers are now on the market to cover key industrial applications including component cleaning, hand wiping, specialist cleaning and mopping up spills. These tasks are carried out in many industrial units, both small and large.However, there are certain logistical problems that apply only in bigger factories.

For example in larger industrial units there is a need for a large supply of wipers to cater for all staff.The manager is therefore likely to buy in the biggest wiping roll he can find and position this in a central location. But this means all his workers will have to make the trek to the wiper roll, and many man hours will be lost.

This was the case in a drill factory we visited on the North Sea.The company used disposables for tasks such as wiping down machines and cleaning drilling units, but the site was vast and employees were walking at least a quarter of a mile to pick up each wiper.

We suggested that the company replace their single wiping roll with floorstands and wallstands placed strategically near to the machinery where they were to be used. Floorstands hold large quantities of wiper and can be moved to wherever they are required.

Sometimes several different applications are carried out in one large industrial unit. For example we visited a newsprint manufacturer in Kent that consisted of a main plant area and four satellite maintenance sites that were all quite remote from each other. Staff would take a handful of rags from a large centrally-placed box and walk the 400-500 yards between sites. Every time their supplies ran out they had to return to the rag box.

Two types of wiper were required here: a good general-purpose wiper for maintenance tasks and a specialist heavy-duty wiper for cleaning printing presses using solvents.We suggested a Giant Roll containing Tork Multi for general-purpose wiping plus several portable Flexi-Boxes of heavy-duty Tork Strong for cleaning machinery.Tork Strong has been purpose-designed to withstand solvents and to cope with heavy industrial cleaning.

Where several manufacturing applications take place in one large plant, manufacturers are tempted to buy just one type of wiper to simplify ordering systems and to keep down costs.However, this type of cost-cutting measure can actually work out to be very expensive.

For instance it is not cost-effective to use a specialist, high quality wiper for general-purpose cleaning or mopping up spills.And if a lowcost wiper is used for critical wiping applications it may scratch the wiping surface or leave lint behind.This is what happened when a lawnmower manufacturer used cheap wiper rolls for cleaning its moulds.

Small particles from the wiper were left behind, clogging the threading and resulting in deformed moulds that would not snap together.The company had already made 10 000 of these faulty parts before discovering the problem – and as a result they were £25 000 out of pocket.They later switched to low-linting Tork Strong for specialist wiping.

In a plant where several tasks are being carried out, the right wiper should be supplied for each. It therefore makes sense to ensure that each employee has the appropriate wiper close at hand. Specialised wipers such as heavy-duty Tork Strong; soft wiper Tork Soft; polishing cloth Tork 909 and oil-absorbent Tork Mekanic are all available in the Tork Top-Pak which contains up to 150 wipers and fits conveniently on the wall or next to a work station.

If a higher-use system is needed, some specialist wipers also come in the wall-mounted Wiper-Pak which contains up to 400 sheets.

Large plants come in all shapes and sizes. Some are vast in scale but use wipers for a single purpose only.Other factories combine several functions which means that heavy industrial applications are carried out alongside precision work and different types of wiper are needed.

Some industrial units are not physically large at all but have a large, busy workforce who use a great deal of wipers every day.

All these requirements can be accommodated by means of a well thought-out system of wipers and dispensing systems.

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