Eden wins Golden Service Award for work where hygiene is absolutely vital

 

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An outstanding performance in a cleaning environment where absolute hygiene is essential is exactly what the Best Specialist Cleaning Company Award category of the 2013 KIMBERLY-CLARK PROFESSIONAL* Golden Service Awards is designed to recognise.

 

The fantastic job done by Eden Professional Cleaning Services for Lonza Biologics PLC in Slough impressed the judges enough to take top spot. 

 

“This really takes cleaning one stage further,” says Stephen Kerr, Regional Sales Leader for UK, Ireland, Nordic and Benelux at KIMBERLY-CLARK PROFESSIONAL*. “Absolute cleanliness is vital to the production process at Lonza Biologics and Eden Professional have provided it consistently and reliably over a five year period.

 

Eden Professional Cleaning Services clean the production areas of Lonza Biologics plant in Slough, following Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) rules for biopharmaceutical production, explains General Manager Lesley Ives. “This requires consistent attention to detail to prevent infection and contamination,” she says. “The plant manufactures products that are injected making it ultra critical to ensure no contamination occurs.”

 

Lonza Biologics is a worldwide leader supplying the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with biopharmaceuticals, Lonza furnishes different markets with state-of-the-art products, services, and research. Its customers range from professionals within the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, and government research industries to manufacturers of consumer and health products, distributors, formulators, and service companies.

 

When Eden Professional started the contract, there was a need to bring the whole site fully up to standard and to introduce modern cleaning techniques. “We installed scrubber driers to cope with the main corridors where previously staff had come to work around 4am, in order to mop the floors in time to ensure they were dry for the clients’ staff at 6am,” she says. “We put in steam cleaners to fermentation to facilitate cleaning of some of the more inaccessible areas to make sure that all surfaces were decontaminated properly. Additional staff were brought in for a few weeks to enable us to achieve results more quickly.”

 

“In addition to our own training our staff had to undergo in depth training in all aspects of working in this type of environment, entry controls, ppe’s, control of infection, health and safety on plant , emergency decontamination sprays, completion of log books, use of specialised chemicals,” she says. Sop’s (Standard Operating Procedures) and GMP requirements, formed the overall training matrix for the site.  “We also trained a number of staff in Bics Level 1,” she says. 

 

Eden Professional had to build confidence on the part of the client. “We fought the cynicism through hard work, good communications and always ensuring that the job was done right first time and every time,” she says. “Barriers also existed with the staff who transferred to us, they had received little training, little supervision or recognition and were understandably negative.”

 

“It took a lot of hard work to get them on side but consistent management, fairness, correct wages, listening, training and providing the things to do the job with finally won the day,” she says. “We achieved zero labour turnover with an almost unblemished record for the past few years.” With a cost of £3,000 to Lonza to train each operative, that was an important saving. 

 

“We believe that apart from the hard work that has been put in by everyone that our staff are our greatest asset,” she says. “We are always mindful of this. Without their continued loyalty and commitment we would not enjoy the success that we do.”

 

That includes small things like giving them Easter eggs and taking them out for Christmas, both of which are appreciated by staff as a sign of how much they are valued on a personal level, as well as paying them higher wage rates. “This enabled us to recruit staff of a calibre critical to this type of environment,” she says. “A good level of literacy is required as log books have to be completed every day for every task and are audited monthly by the client and available for representative of, for example, the US Food and Drug Administration. We have recognised the importance of this and also how it can be a daunting aspect of their work, we have now employed a part time quality auditor, she checks both the log books and that staff are applying the correct techniques when cleaning. This has been a very positive move.”

 

“We have an experienced Site Manager who has played a significant role in developing a good culture within our staff and is trusted by all those who deal with him,” she says. “He is unflappable.”

 

“We always review our methods of work, it is essential that we stay in the forefront of cleaning techniques to enable us to continue to provide the quality of service that we take such pride in,” she says. “In short we love what we do and want to continue to delight and support our end users. We are a small company but we have a wealth of experience and welcome every opportunity to showcase it.”