Winning with Mats

1 December 1998



Dust control mat service is one rental market area showing continuing growth potential. And there is still the domestic market for mats to be explored and exploited. Philip Garner reports.


If dust control mats—with or without company logos, sales slogans or product and servicing imaging—can be found in the entrance halls and office doorways of prestigious office blocks, then why can they not be found similarly located in residential apartment blocks? Upwardly mobile young people in those regions and cities where the service economy is booming no longer live in ‘flats’, they live in apartments. Apartments in the South East can vary in cost from £140 000 at the lower end, to over £1million; and, hand in hand, go service charges, much of which is devoted to cleaning. An annual bill for £20 000 and upwards is not untypical at the upper end of the scale. Even at the lowest end, the bill may run to £3000 for each apartment leaseholder. Yet here is an area where the adoption of dust mats, dust control and cleaning services could reduce overheads enormously.

But cleaning dust control mats is not without its problems. For instance, their structure is easy to damage during conventional processing. Pockets of water, trapped in the rubber base, can become pressurised during extraction and burst the backing.

This damage, provided it is not too extensive, is repairable but it is an add-on cost. Furthermore, if washer-extractors are replaced by continuous batch washing machines to cater for high volume production (and if the membrane pressure press is used), bursting could become extensive.

Of course, the volume of mats to be handled will influence the type of equipment used. And dust mats do not need to be finished so there is really no need to plan extensive or sophisticated work movement systems subsequent to the washing process. But an efficient way of segregating them after drying, into size, colour and perhaps pile fibre content will still be necessary.

Investing in equipment Where a low volume of mats is handled in a separate department, then washer-extractors are ideal. They can be loaded from overhead bags or from trolleys. But it is vital that the heavy particulate matter, grit and such like is removed prior to washing. Otherwise, the grit will work its way into cage bearings or valve seatings and cause excessive machine wear.

Grit removal can be done by using a modified tumbler, arranged so that the grit and other heavy particulate soiling can be shaken free and dropped into a removable container in the base which would be emptied periodically.

Modern washer-extractors are computer controlled so that processing can be construed to remove greasy matter and other forms of street soiling. The process time is seldom longer than one hour, not including drying. In one plant I found that the management had invested in an overhead bag loading system for its washer-extractors, the bags being filled by hand after grit removal and held in reserve. Each bag took 50 kg of mats, with two bags comprising a machine load.

The washer-extractor selected was a double door Braunex. This discharged from the rear onto an inclined conveyor which transported the washed and mats to a tumbler. Burst damage, I was told was minimal—not enough to sustain an operator in full time employment.

The tumbler too had been modified. It had special filters in the outlet air ducting to prevent dust, loosened fibre and so on being discharged to the atmosphere. This modification had been insisted upon by the local environmental protection department.

After drying, the mats were sized, colour categorised and stacked on racks from which customer orders were made up. One man handled the whole unit carried out the burst backing repairs. As far as I can remember, the entire unit with its one operator was handling a little in excess of 1000 mats per week of small to medium sizings. Mats of two metres or more in length were not included in the inventory.

Sometimes the modern continuous batch washing machine can be the answer, even where there is a relatively low volume. Machines such as the Senking Universal, the Milnor or the Kannegeisser-Passat Ultra Tandem can be used to process mats and then switch to other classifications—workwear, bedlinen, towels etc—when the mat volume is finished.

The Senking Universal is known to have the versatility, efficient bath exchange and a water flow system to be able to take dust control mats, heavily soiled industrial, workwear and lightly soiled white or pastel coloured garments in sequence, without there being contamination by soiling or colour carried out between separate charges of dissimilar loads. Loading in this machine is via an inclined sectional conveyor; the conveyor compartment accommodates 36 or 50kg.

After processing, items are transferred by shuttle conveyor to the tumblers. The one used for mat processing is locked in by the computer for this duty and ensuing charges are stored on a carrier conveyor. The other tumblers in the ‘bank’ are reserved for conditioning or full dry duties. Mats which have completed the process are segregated at the end. It should be pointed out, however, that the latest pressure variable membrane presses do not burst backing nowadays. The mats then pass to a conveyor and are discharged into trolleys for sizing and storing.

In high volume plants where more than 10 000 mats per week are handled, processing and handling is now extremely sophisticated. But there still remains the primary requirement of grit and heavy particulates removal which is of paramount importance.

If the mat has been used in an area where sand and fine dust are the principal pollutants, this type of heavy particle soiling can cause wear problems to the washing machinery if left in place. A specially designed tumbler must be used here which beats the mats and dislodges the soiling and dust. Soil is collected in a container below the tumbler cage for disposal. Unlike conventional tumblers, the one here is unheated and has no discharge to atmosphere.

After a thorough beating, the mats are automatically discharged to trolleys and loaded into the compartments of a sectional conveyor to be washed. Moisture removal is by two or three centrifugal hydro-extractors and each tunnel washer load is automatically directed to the extractor which is already free or is about to be so. Shuttle conveyors are used to transfer and store the mats before drying. After drying they are hand segregated into size, type, fibre content and intended purpose.

It has to be recognised that mat processing is high on water consumption. In one plant I visited, there was an extremely sophisticated process water recovery system. It had been expensive to install but the plant’s water consumption had been reduced to 1l/kg of mats processed from a norm of 10-12l/kg. In view of the fact that water costs are continually rising, the inclusion of a process water recovery system is becoming almost obligatory. It is an investment which will pay-off handsomely in the long term.

As I said in the beginning, the mat market has tremendous growth, but like all other rental markets, it is fiercely competitive. Production efficiency and processing economy are essential to keep costs down and profits up.



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