Large surface area, narrow aisles – (not) a contradiction when choosing a cleaning machine


25.04.2022

At LANDI Lenzburg you will find products for the home, garden and agriculture. The sales area is large, but divided into narrow aisles – no easy task for floor cleaning. With the Duomatic Endurer from Wetrok, the LANDI team has now found the ideal cleaning machine. But how is cleaning done during shop opening hours and what does a scrubber-dryer need to do to accomplish this task?

Where can you find hedge clippers, hair dryers, dog food and elderberry syrup just a few shelves apart? At LANDI, of course. LANDI shops are mostly located in the rural parts of Switzerland. They sell products for the home, garden and agriculture as well as selected food and beverages. With strong regional roots and a Swiss character, around 50 per cent of the products come from Swiss suppliers. When the ageing floor cleaning machine at LANDI Lenzburg was due to be replaced in 2021, it was immediately clear to branch manager Daniel Lütolf that the successor model should be sourced from a Swiss manufacturer.

A clean floor for secondary displays and standard shelves
The branch manager came to the cleaning material manufacturer Wetrok because of his experience with their vacuum cleaners. “I know the top quality and suction power of the Wetrok vacuum cleaners, so I was convinced that the floor cleaning machines would also deliver what they promise,” explains Daniel Lütolf. And so LANDI Lenzburg acquired the Duomatic Endurer scrubber-dryer in summer 2021. The machine matches the green colour of the LANDI logo, and it is not only green in colour, but also bears the EUnited Green Cleaning Label. The label certifies the machine’s high cleaning efficiency with low water and energy consumption. The generous working width and 80-litre tank make the machine perfect for the sales area of 1,800 square metres. Despite the size, the machine is as easy to manoeuvre and steer around corners as a small machine, which really is important for LANDI Lenzburg with its narrow aisles of shelves and various seasonal secondary displays in the middle of the sales area. Daniel Lütolf is enthusiastic: “We wanted a compact machine for daily cleaning between the shelves as well as for efficient special cleaning of large free spaces when we need to set up changes in our seasonal product range. Normally, you would need two different cleaning machines for this, but the Duomatic Endurer meets both requirements perfectly.” The scrubber-dryer is also used for spot cleaning when necessary. If a juice bottle leaks while being sorted onto the shelves, the sticky-sweet liquid spreads all over the floor. The Wetrok scrubber-dryer quickly solves the problem: it can clean up the accidental spillage within a few minutes and customers can safely walk on the floor again.

Snow, road dirt and potting soil
The usual, predictable floor soiling is also varied: street dirt and snow carried in by shoes, scraps of packaging and dust scattered by pallet dollies, but also residues such as potting soil, sawdust or coal dust coming from leaking product packaging. This kind of loose dirt is removed with a broom before machine cleaning. The floor is a robust industrial floor (Gerflor GTI Max). It consists of loose tiles that can be laid individually or interlocked. The advantage: The floor is very resilient and can sustain traffic of shopping trolleys, pallet trucks or forklift trucks (and scrubber-dryers). At first glance, the floor covering appears smooth, but on closer inspection it does have a slight texture. It cannot be clearly categorised as a ‘smooth’ or ‘textured’ floor covering. For this reason, it is cleaned alternately with scrubbing brushes (Wetrok Filament scrubbing brush) and scrubbing pads (red Wetrok scrubbing pad).

Cleaning machine set-up in record time
It is 5:15 pm. Time for Markus Schmid. The external LANDI cleaning specialist cleans the entire floor area of the shop every Monday and Thursday evening. It takes him about two hours. Customers are still present during most of the cleaning work, and the cleaning of the checkout area takes place after closing time. Markus Schmid fetches the scrubber-dryer from the storage room and prepares it for use. One product advantage that really helps him when setting up the machine is the integrated dosing system. This system mixes water and chemicals directly in the correct ratio. He fills the chemical tank of the dosing system with the cleaning agent Wetrok Reshine. The power cleaner dissolves all kinds of dirt, leaves the floor streak-free and smooths out micro-scratches – a regular optical fine retouch for the floor, so to speak. But the machine has two more special features that make Markus Schmid’s preparation work easier: the hose can be coupled, and the brushes inserted or ejected, at the push of a button. “The hose coupling allows me to connect the hose directly to the machine – so the water runs directly into the fresh water tank. The water supply will be shut off automatically once the tank is full”, he explains. He also appreciates that he no longer has to get his hands dirty with used brushes – the brushes can be conveniently inserted and ejected at the touch of a button. All these time-saving extras mean the machine is ready for use in record time.

Cleaning the shop floor strip by strip
Markus Schmid sets the cleaning machine in motion and passes the sliding door of the storage room. He starts by cleaning the first aisle of shelves. He passes orange juice bottles, screwdrivers and light bulbs. At the end of the aisle, Markus Schmid turns around and continues his work on the second strip. As there are some stubborn stains to be dealt with today, he repeats the process. Now the first aisle is clean. Here, additional manual edge cleaning is not even necessary, as the machine has optimally removed the dirt up to the edge. The process is somewhat different for secondary displays in the middle of the sales area. Beautifully presented on pallets, Easter bunnies smile down from the shelves and colourful cut flowers awaken the desire for spring. Markus Schmid makes his way between the standard shelf and the spring secondary displays with the scrubber-dryer. However, subsequent manual edge cleaning is unavoidable for pallet displays – too much unreachable dirt accumulates underneath.

The joys of cleaning during the day
On the way to the next shelf aisle Markus Schmid is stopped: “where can I find seeds for strawberries here?” a customer asks him. He cheerfully directs the woman to a sales employee. Markus Schmid smiles. From time to time, he is mistaken for a sales employee, he says. Due to the fact that cleaning takes place during shop opening hours, interactions like this are not uncommon. In fact, he has to clean very carefully so as not to get in the way of the customers or block their view of the shelves. However, there is no danger of anyone slipping on the floor at any time. The Duomatic Endurer is equipped with patented suction technology for immediately drying the floor – known as the Power-Whirl function. No sooner is the floor cleaned than it is dry again. This function was designed for floor cleaning in high-traffic retail outlets.

At the checkout, the last customer is just putting her goods on the conveyor belt, including a bottle of juice. The drink reaches the cashier unharmed – otherwise Markus Schmid would have been there immediately with the Duomatic Endurer.

 


Customer enthusiasm in a nutshell:

“The Duomatic Endurer has an ingenious product feature that makes cleaning during shop opening hours much easier for us: the Power-Whirl suction bar. Due to a specially designed suction mechanism, the floor is dry again immediately after the machine has passed over it. Thanks to this ultra-fast drying, there is no danger of customers slipping and the Landi employees can move freely with their pallet trolleys, even while cleaning work is taking place at the same time – without leaving dirty streaks and smears in a potentially wet area.”

Daniel Lütolf, Branch Manager LANDI Lenzburg

 

“I have been cleaning LANDI Lenzburg with the Duomatic Endurer since summer 2021. Switching to this scrubber-dryer was easy for me – it has only a few buttons, so it is very easy to operate. I appreciate that this machine combines apparently contradictory functions. On the one hand, it is wide and quickly creates a lot of surface area, but on the other hand, it is so manoeuvrable that I can easily get around every corner and clean very close to the edge. Compared to our old scrubber-dryer, I can do the shop floor in half the time with the Duomatic Endurer.”

Markus Schmid, Cleaning Specialist LANDI Lenzburg