Cleaner and greener Tennant

CLEANER AND GREENER

Tennant Company is a world leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of solutions to help create cleaner indoor and outdoor environments. Abigail Saltmarsh reports.

Tennant Company has innovation in its DNA, says the general manager of EMEA and Global City Cleaning, Yves Derycke. With that in mind, Mr Derycke would like to see the operation ‘transformed’ – his ultimate aim is for a company that offers only environmentally friendly solutions and that has relationships with its customers that are second to none.

“Our global vision is to be a leader in water-based and other sustainable cleaning technologies, and our dream is that Tennant will be transformed,” he says. “We are moving towards this with our recent innovations and our new service contracts. We want to be a company that pro actively responds to our customers’ needs. We can have fantastic innovations but they must be what our customers want and delivered as they want them. We believe we understand our customers better than before and that – with the right products and tailored service contracts – we have started the process of transformation.” Maintaining its position

Tennant Company is a world leader in the design, manufacturing and marketing of products for maintaining surfaces in industrial, commercial and outdoor environments, chemical-free and other sustainable cleaning technologies and coatings for protecting, repairing and upgrading surfaces. Its global field service network is the most extensive in the industry.

In Europe, it has manufacturing operations in the Netherlands and in Scotland, in the UK; elsewhere, it produces in two facilities in the USA, as well as in Brazil and China. Products are marketed under the Tennant®, Nobles® , Green Machines™, Orbio® and Alfa™ brands.

“One of our greatest achievements of recent times, of course, has been to survive the difficult economic climate in Europe,” says Mr Derycke. For instance, our ec-H2O™ chemical-free cleaning technology has enabled us to offer our customers a cost-effective and green cleaning solution. This has been very much appreciated by customers across the whole of Europe.

“We have also launched a couple of new service contracts and are continuing to look at this area – at the moment, for example, we are launching a new service approach for our municipal customers.”

Clean technologies

The company is passionate about developing innovative and sustainable solutions to help its customers address their indoor and outdoor cleaning challenges, Mr Derycke continues. Its suite of water-based and other sustainable cleaning technologies is redefining the way the world cleans and it is setting the benchmark for sustainable indoor and outdoor cleaning. “For outdoor cleaning, we have created a product that helps to eliminate emissions and reduce noise pollution: the 500ze compact lithium ion battery powered street sweeper.

“One recent step forward for us in indoor cleaning has been the Orbio 5000Sc. This has the same kind of electrolysis technology as our ec-H2O equipment but while that used a blended stream technology this uses a split stream,” he explains.

Orbio Split Stream technology is available exclusively on the Orbio 5000-Sc, which uses tap water, a small amount of salt and electricity to create an effective multi-purpose cleaning solution that works with most existing cleaning equipment and methods. The Orbio 5000-Sc cleaning solution cleans a broad variety of soils, including fats, proteins and organic oils. It aims to match or exceed the performance of many conventional cleaners so customers can replace many costly, potentially harmful chemicals from their cleaning programs with just one cleaning solution.

More productive

“Another innovation we have – one that really is brand new as it is to be launched in March – is the T12, which replaces our 7100. This compact scrubber-dryer rider has been developed following in-depth customer research, and is more productive and has better ergonomics,” says Mr Derycke.

The T12 was designed to clean effectively, save money, increase safety and reduce environmental impact with optional chemical-free ec-H2O technology. It can clean floors from edge-to-edge with optional scrubbing side-brush and offers a 28 per cent wider scrub path.

“We build platforms,” he goes on. “This means that with our equipment we can create commercial or industrial versions. We have customers from all areas within these two groups.”

Improved production

The move from the 7100 to the T12 has seen major investment at Tennant. There has also recently been a move to bring the manufacture of plastic body components in-house, resulting in a total investment of $1 million at the Netherlands facility.

“There are major benefits to producing these parts ourselves,” he says. “We can now react much faster to peaks in demand and have responsibility for quality checks.”

Another recent change to the go-to-market strategy has seen a move to use more external distributors in Europe where possible.

“This makes sense because we can expect better market coverage. We have really seen orders pick up this way, especially in France.”

Future growth

As Tennant Company moves forward, the emphasis will continue to be on innovation, both in terms of product development and the way the company operates. The company will continue to look at improving its access to customers and, while municipal cleaning has taken a downturn along with the economy, expects to see growth in this area in the future.

“We will also maintain our focus on service and the after-market,” says Mr Derycke. “This is an important part of listening to our customers and making sure that they get everything they want. If our global vision is to transform Tennant into a different company, we have to keep looking at all these areas.” n