E Book
Chemicals & Dosing
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Chemicals & Dosing
Contents
1. Are You Concentrating Yet?
2. The Key Benefits of Using Concentrates
3. Types of Manual Dosing Equipment
4. Electronic Dosing Equipment
5. Engineering Services Reliability
6. Equipment & Commercial Viability
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1. Are You Concentrating Yet?
Welcome to our latest blog series covering the subject of chemicals and dosing. A hot topic in
the trade press, the six-part series will discuss the most important issues surrounding the
chemical dosing landscape.
Chemical Dosing: A Brief Overview
Chemical dosing systems, whether manual dispensing pumps or electronic dosing units, have
been around for 30 years or so. The core premise of both is the same – the use of equipment
to enable the end user to accurately dose or dilute a chemical concentrate at the point of use,
to give a ready to use cleaning or disinfecting solution.
Active ingredients make up a very small percentage of the composition of ready-to-use
cleaning products – the rest being water. In the past, this meant that large multi-site
organisations were spending a significant proportion of their cleaning expenditure on ‘buying
water’. With water being a readily available and cheap commodity in most developed
countries, the solution lay in pushing up the concentration of active ingredients. This is what
RP Adam has done over the last decade or more by manufacturing and marketing
concentrated chemicals.
Over the last 15 years, great strides have been made by the major dosing equipment
manufacturers. Dosing systems are now simpler to use, easier to install by technicians and
more reliable in terms of lifespan and accuracy of dilution control.
It used to be that only the larger global corporations could afford to supply free-on-loan
equipment and resource with adequate engineering services. This is no longer the case.
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Today, the provision of dosing equipment and associated engineering services is much more
accessible and more affordable to a wider spectrum of businesses.
Customer Expectations
The above has been a positive and progressive trend for both supplier and customer, and has
put economy in use higher up the agenda.
Many customers now expect chemical dosing stations as part of their cleaning package.
Suppliers can sometimes find managing these expectations a difficult task, especially if the
user’s financial contribution (spend) is not in line with the investment required by the supplier
to supply, install and service the equipment on an ongoing basis. We will look at this subject
in greater detail in future posts within this series.
Topics Covered
Key topics to be examined will include:
1. The types of cleaning & disinfection concentrate available and how they need to be
designed properly to make controlled dilution work to maximum effect i.e. in terms of
lowest in use costs and effectiveness of the cleaning and disinfection solutions.
2. The types of manual dosing equipment available including chemical to water types
and water/chemical mixing stations; the things to consider when choosing the right
type of system.
3. Electronic dosing equipment for dish and glass washing, liquid laundry and drain
dosing applications.
4. The importance of effective engineering capability to a) respond to machine
breakdowns, b) maintain/replace equipment parts within a wider preventative
maintenance programme, and c) have the capability to roll out national multi-site
contracts efficiently and on time.
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5. How suppliers assess the commercial viability of providing free-on-loan dosing
equipment and avoid some of the pitfalls when costing out contract investment.
Doing It Right
We believe, to do it properly, supplier businesses should expect to invest up to a double digit
percentage of their turnover in the provision of free-on-loan equipment and professional
engineering services each year.
Clearly, this will vary between business types and the sectors they are active in, but there are
no short cuts – you either commit and resource properly or you don’t. It is critical, therefore,
that there is a solid business model supporting investment in their clients’ operations.
All parties (supplier, distributor and end user customer) need to be clear on who is investing
in what and who benefits from such investment. The supplier and the distributor hopefully
receive a longer-term supply commitment, with the customer gaining the in-use cost and
lower wastage benefits of dilution control.
Chemical Dosing at RP Adam
RP Adam invests heavily in time and money to help research and develop new dosing
equipment technology, collaborating with leading equipment manufacturers to assist them in
bringing new innovations to market. We are frequently asked to participate in Q&A sessions
when the concepts are at design stage and take part in soft launches to ensure these systems
are fit for purpose in a real and demanding working environment.
It is in our interest to ensure that these system innovations can handle the rigours of the
modern cleaning world. Likewise, equipment manufacturers have a high regard for our
concentrated products and use them for upper limit chemical compatibility tests to check that
the dispenser components can handle high chemical concentrations and will not corrode over
time.
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Stephen Woolmer, CEO of UK based Brightwell Dispensers Ltd says:
“As equipment manufacturers we are under pressure to expand our expertise, product and
service offering in line with emerging customer needs. For decades, RP Adam has collaborated
with Brightwell Dispensers to develop some of the most innovative, reliable and accurate
dosing systems on the market today. Our focus has been to deliver cleaning professionals a
safe, precise and economic chemical management system for a multitude of applications such
as catering, laundry and housekeeping. With a combined experience of nearly 200 years, our
family business shares a vision to offer our customers first class service, support and innovative
products.”
http://www.brightwell.co.uk/about-us/history
http://www.brightwell.co.uk/about-us/history
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/catering-cleaning-disinfection/
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/catering-cleaning-disinfection/
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/brilliant-laundry-logic/
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/brilliant-laundry-logic/
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/brilliant-laundry-logic/
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/housekeeping-domestic-services/
http://www.rpadam.co.uk/products/housekeeping-domestic-services/
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2. The Key Benefits of Using Concentrates
In part two of our six-part series we examine the stand-out benefits of using a controlled
chemical dispensing system and chemical concentrates and wonder why more businesses are
not realising these.
The cleaning industry has a reputation for being quite innovative, but it is the translation of
these benefits into the B2B commercial sphere where we find some resistance from the end
user; despite compelling evidence that using concentrates and chemical dosing systems can
immediately deliver real businesses benefit in many areas.
There are four key reasons to embrace concentrates and chemical dosing:
1. To reduce the amount of packaging waste and to control chemical consumption
thereby improving a business’s environmental profile and reduce its carbon footprint.
2. To ensure the accuracy of disinfectant solutions so that critical food-contact
equipment and surfaces are disinfected to meet industry standards. Similarly, for
health care and washroom surfaces where there is a potential for cross contamination.
3. To be able to control cleaning costs in a disciplined way rather than rely on end user
free-hand pouring or continued use of expensive and environmentally unsound
readyto-use pre-packed cleaning products.
4. To reduce the risk to users of accidental contact with potentially hazardous chemical
products and thereby improve the safety profile of your business.
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
http://www.thearpalgroupblog.com/chemicals-dosing-part-2-the-key-benefits-of-using-concentrates/
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