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When visiting any type of service business, most customers expect quality in every aspect of the experience. At a restaurant, for example, patrons expect the waitstaff to be perfectly attentive, hope the food will delight the taste buds and assume every square inch of the establishment will be clean and sanitary. If any part of the operation seems dirty or unsanitary, it’s most likely that customers will go away with a negative opinion. Kaivac Inc. puts itself in the place of business owners and their employees to help with the clean part of a quality business – whether it is a restaurant or something else – allowing owners to focus on quality elsewhere. 

Kaivac’s focus is the development of “science-based hygienic cleaning systems that protect the health of building occupants while raising the value of cleaning operations.” Its equipment and technology is designed to remove the maximum amount of potentially harmful soils and bio-pollution in the most cost-efficient manner. 

“We are a little different than a cleaning equipment manufacturer,” Vice President of Marketing Tom Morrison says. “We’re very hands-on in our approach to developing systems. We put ourselves in the shoes of the people doing the cleaning and develop systems that are very worker-focused. They also are science-based in that our main focus is validating the soil removal through advanced hygiene measurement technologies. Our solutions differ across different marketplaces, but we’re always looking for the best results. What removes the most soil in the quickest time in the friendliest manner to the worker?”

No-Touch Technology

Bob Robinson Sr. founded Kaivac in 1997 after he decided there had to be a better way of cleaning restrooms than swabbing floors on one’s hands and knees. The company got its start when he combined pressure washing, chemical injection, wet vacuuming and other tools on a single platform to create the KaiVac No-Touch Cleaning System, Morrison says. 

The company now offers a variety of no-touch cleaning systems, and each integrated system offers automatic chemical metering and injection, an indoor pressure washer and a powerful wet vacuum. These systems, Morrison explains, enable workers to deep-clean and sanitize without having to touch soiled or contaminated surfaces, which results in cleaner buildings, more productive employees, happier customers and reduced costs spent on unnecessary equipment and excess chemicals.

Kaivac’s research shows that its no-touch cleaning systems are 60 times more effective at reducing bacterial contamination than mops. Traditional mops and wipes, he explains, do more to move soils and contaminants around instead of removing them. By removing the pollutants, Kaivac’s systems eliminate odors and reduce the risk of disease. Greater soil removal also increases slip resistance so floors are much safer. In fact, the company’s systems have been certified by the National Floor Safety Institute as providing “High Traction.” Additionally, employees aren’t forced to crawl on floors or wipe surfaces by hand while cleaning.

“Our newest product is the OmniFlex Crossover Cleaning System,” he says. “From the beginning, we’ve had a lot of interest from foodservice operations, restaurants, hospitals, schools and universities because of the amount and type of soil they generate, and they know that mops don’t cut it. When soil is not completely removed, it builds up, making surfaces unsightly, unsanitary and unsafe. 

“They liked the No-Touch Cleaning System because it was so effective at removing soil,” he adds. “The problem, however, was that for certain smaller facilities, it was a little expensive and a little complicated to operate, especially for an unskilled, high-turnover work force. We wanted to find a way to help people progress from manual processes and evolve their cleaning programs in a cost-effective way.”

Kaivac took a modular approach; it started with a mop bucket and created motorized attachments with no-touch capabilities. As a result, businesses can configure a system for cleaning their floors that is high-end, simple and costs less than the full KaiVac system. 

“With this system, our primary focus was on how to best clean a floor,” Morrison says. “Our mission was to eliminate the mop by creating solutions that do a much better job but have the same economics as a mop. The OmniFlex starts with a basic trolley bucket, which you could use with a regular mop. From there, a customer can create a simple but high-performing automated package by just adding our wet/dry vacuum. We also can add a pump system, which incorporates an indoor pressure washer and chemical injection to create the functional equivalent of a no-touch system. 

“We mix and match the devices to meet the needs of our customers,” he adds. “The basic system, however, is very effective on floors. Plus, it is intuitive and easy to learn, and available at a reasonable price. We introduced it to the foodservice industry six months ago, and it’s had a great reception.”

Quality Measures

Under its “remove it, prove it” promise, Kaivac not only provides the systems to remove soil in buildings, it also offers technology that will measure the level of hygiene on a given surface. 

Morrison explains Kaivac’s SystemSure Plus measures Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), which is an energy molecule found in all animal, plant, bacterial, yeast and mold cells, all of which should be significantly reduced after cleaning. When ATP comes into contact with the liquid-stable luciferase/luciferin reagent in the SystemSure’s testing swab, light is emitted in direct proportion to the amount of ATP present. The higher the reading, the more contamination present. ATP testing is a universally recognized tool for measuring surface hygiene levels, Kaivac says, and ensures consistent sanitation practices, as well as public safety. 

“There is definitely a greater acceptance of hygiene measurement,” Morrison says. “Foodservice has standard measurement programs, and other industries are developing clean standards, as well. 

“Our ATP measurement tool is a simple handheld device,” he notes. “You swab the surface, put the swab in the meter, wait 15 seconds, and the meter gives a number to quantify the level of organic contamination on the surface. With this, our customers know they are cleaning for health vs. just cleaning for appearance.”

Due to its systems and technology, Kaivac always has been attractive to the foodservice industry, but it is making a big push into that market now. It developed new marketing and distribution plans for foodservice, and is ready for new customers. Morrison says Kaivac is equipped to sustain its business in the maintenance and janitorial industry, while expanding farther into foodservice. 

“There are more than 900,000 professional applications for our systems, and we have something to fit virtually everyone,” he says. “Our culture of innovation is one of our hallmarks, and it will continue to aid our growth. Our goal is to go above the standard and really try to think about what our customers are experiencing. We’re always working to make our systems easier, better, more productive and more cost effective. We have a very curious culture, and our people are encouraged to experiment and try new things, which leads to our growth.”