Testing productivity claims for a large Eastern Creek logistics floor

Coverage rates quoted for floor machines describe ideal conditions: open floor, no obstructions, minimal turning. A real logistics floor has racking, pallets, staged freight, chargers and traffic, and the practical rate falls well below the theoretical one. On a small area that difference is absorbed. Across a very large floor it compounds, and a plan built on the catalogue figure runs out of hours long before it runs out of building.

The result is rarely a conversation. It is a floor where the same aisles are done every week and others are reached occasionally, because the cleaner has to make a choice somebody should have made at the planning stage. Testing the assumption during the comparison lets you have that conversation deliberately rather than discovering the compromise by walking the far end of the building and finding a section that has plainly not been touched for weeks.

Take the area to be machine cleaned, divide by the coverage rate the provider assumes, and compare the result with the attendance hours in the quote. Then discount for obstructions, turning and the time spent filling, emptying and moving between zones. If the numbers only work at the theoretical rate, ask what the plan is when the practical rate applies, because it will apply from the first visit.

Do the same for manual areas. Amenities, offices, the dispatch bench and the mezzanine each take time that has nothing to do with floor coverage, and they are often omitted from the calculation entirely. A provider whose figures account for both the machine work and the manual work separately has planned the attendance. One who quotes a single total has estimated it and an estimate will not survive contact with the actual building.

It is entirely legitimate for a provider to say the whole floor cannot be machine cleaned every visit and to propose a zoned rotation instead. That is usually the right answer for a very large area, and it is far better than a claim to cover everything that quietly becomes a rotation anyway. Ask for the zones to be named and the cycle stated so you can check what was covered.

A stated rotation also gives you something to manage. If freight volumes change and one zone deteriorates faster, the cycle can be adjusted deliberately. Without a written rotation there is nothing to adjust, because nobody agreed what the pattern was supposed to be. Ask every bidder whether they are proposing full coverage or a rotation, since comparing one of each on price alone is meaningless.