TORP Sandefjord Airport, located south of Oslo, Norway, is a bustling regional airport that welcomes around 150,000 passengers every month during high-traffic periods. To keep the airport’s 27,000 m2 of floor space in top condition, a 21-member cleaning team works in three overlapping shifts, from 5 a.m. until midnight, every day.
To increase cleaning efficiency while optimizing labor costs, Insider Facility Services, the contract cleaner serving TORP Sandefjord Airport, decided to invest in robotic floor scrubbers at the start of 2019. Initially, they purchased two machines from a Nilfisk competitor, but after experiencing numerous issues and unexpected extra charges, Insider Facility Services switched to a single Nilfisk Liberty SC50, and the results speak for themselves.
Today, the Liberty SC50 cleans 70-75% of TORP Sandefjord Airport’s public floor space, including the check-in and arrival areas. According to Henrika Puksmiene, the airport’s Operational Contract Manager, the machine saves the cleaning team around 3 hours every day. In Norway, where the net hourly cost of cleaning labour can be as high as €25 per hour, these time savings equate to roughly €27,000 a year
Advantages of the Nilfisk Liberty SC50
The solution: The Nilfisk Liberty SC50
The adoption of the Nilfisk Liberty SC50 was a success, helping Insider Facility Services achieve both of its goals: higher productivity and lower labor costs.
Currently, the machine cleans 3,000-4,000 m2 every day, and frees up cleaners’ time for tasks requiring a human touch, such as maintaining toilets, cleaning retail areas, and dealing with spills. And the operator team, which includes Puksmiene and 10 members of the cleaning team, have not experienced any of the problems exhibited by the previous competitor machines.
Here’s how Nilfisk assisted Insider Facility Services with improving its cleaning performance and efficiency at TORP Sandefjord Airport through autonomous cleaning.
- With the Liberty SC50, new cleaning paths can be programmed easily by operators. Puksmiene notes that this provides much-needed independence and saves them money. “Even though the Nilfisk product was more expensive up front, we don’t have to pay someone else to do the mapping for us afterward.”
- The Liberty SC50 saves the cleaning team around 3 hours every day. The original goal of purchasing an autonomous machine was to reduce labor costs. With the Liberty SC50, they have succeeded in achieving that goal. “The machine saves two cleaners about 1.5 hours each every day. That adds up to 3 hours of daily savings.”
- The Liberty SC50 works independently and delivers reliable performance. According to Puksmiene, minimal intervention from operators means that, “We can confidently forget about the machine and carry on with other tasks.”
- Nilfisk provides world-class service and support. Finally, Nilfisk has lived up to its commitment to supporting the people who keep the world clean and safe. “We’ve loved the service we’ve received from Nilfisk so far.”
As the demand for cleaning grows, and hygienic standards increase, facilities from airports and shopping centers to grocery stores and schools are using robotic floor scrubbers to lower their cleaning costs while improving their cleaning performance. Read more about Liberty SC50 and learn how it's ushering in the next era of intelligent cleaning.