Bidvest Noonan Ireland

Ireland's leading provider of facilities services and solutions

cleaning

Susan Howard has been promoted to Operations Director for Healthcare

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Bidvest Noonan has strengthened its Irish senior management team with the recent promotion of Susan Howard to Operations Director for Healthcare.

Susan, who joined the firm in 2003, has deep expertise and knowledge of the healthcare sector and will enhance the service and value delivered to clients. In her new role, Susan takes ownership of Bidvest Noonan’s national healthcare portfolio in Ireland, covering both cleaning and security services.

Speaking on her promotion, Susan said: “I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to lead our healthcare operations for our business in Ireland. I look forward to building on the platform the business has created in recent years and ensuring we have the expertise available to support all of our clients.”

Managing Director, Anthony Harman commented: “I am delighted that Susan has took up the role as Operations Director for our healthcare division. The need for a clean and safe environment in the healthcare sector is more important than ever before, and I have no doubt Susan is the right person to lead both our cleaning and security teams. With an experienced team around her and long-standing relationships with clients across Ireland, I have no doubt her tenure will be a success.”

The appointment follows Bidvest Noonan’s ongoing investment in its healthcare operations. Last year, the organisation appointed Emma Power as its Infection Prevention & Control (IPC) Specialist to further develop its subject matter expertise in the sector.

The Importance of Training in the Healthcare Sector

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We caught up with Brigid Ryan, Operations Manager for the Healthcare sector. Brigid shares her career journey and her perspective on how Bidvest Noonan has been so successful in the sector.

How did you get started in the industry?

I started working at Bidvest Noonan in 1999 as a Mobile Area Manager. Prior to joining Bidvest Noonan, I had worked as a Healthcare Professional and I was able to use this experience to progress to the role of Operations Manager in our Healthcare Division. The Mercy University Hospital as one of our first healthcare contracts in Ireland and also my first contract as Operations Manager remains one of my key accounts to this day. It grew from there, and I have had many other healthcare partnerships since.

What sets us apart in the industry?

We were one of the first companies to introduce rigorous site auditing. I remember explaining the concept to our clients at the time. It was basically a way to provide evidence of the quality of our service and to provide a history of consistent quality of service.  Many standard practices that the industry takes for granted now were innovations that we were the first to introduce.

What is unique to working in healthcare?

I believe it is the nature of the working environment and the level of training and IPC knowledge required to perform our work in a healthcare facility. Our people are working in very challenging environments surrounded by vulnerable patients, busy staff, and visitors. Our teams have constant interaction with people while working and this can be both rewarding and challenging. Our work plays a key role in breaking the chain of infection in a healthcare environment. That is why our people must complete a wide range of infection, prevention, and control training to ensure a safe, clean environment for patients, staff, and visitors.

Is Infection Prevention and Control important to the sector?

Yes, we have extensive expertise in this area. Our Healthcare Division recently introduced an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) nurse specialist to the team. Through this investment, we have been able to expand our IPC expertise and continue to improve the service we provide. We have been able to further support our site-based teams by empowering them with the knowledge to ensure that Infection Prevention and Control is at the heart of our cleaning activities on site.

Photo of Bidvest Noonan Cleaning operative in an hospital

New technologies to save on water consumption

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At Bidvest Noonan, we work hard to reduce our water usage at every opportunity.

We work with our clients and suppliers to produce water savings plans, often introducing new environmentally friendly technologies that make more efficient use of water.

We invest in the best cleaning equipment the industry has to offer. For us, that means equipment that achieves great cleaning results while reducing our environmental impact.

In the past year, we have increased our use of highly efficient equipment such as i-Drives, i-Mops and cobotic cleaning machines to reduce our use of water.

Many of our cleaning machines use integrated solution recovery systems to achieve high cleaning standards without harsh chemicals and using just a fraction of the water.

We have introduced water recycling systems for a number of our clients. Recently, we installed a Comac InAqua for one of Ireland’s largest universities. Comac InAqua is an external purification system that allows dirty water to be loaded directly from any floor scrubber. The system filters the dirty water used for cleaning floors and makes it available for reuse. Using this system, up to 150 litres of clean water can be recycled in less than 30 minutes.

By implementing innovative solutions, we are helping many clients to reduce their use of water and make cleaning operations more environmentally friendly.

Environmental report

Now more than ever our actions matter. Our business is playing its part to help save the planet we know and cherish. We are proud to share our Environmental Report, where we outline the steps we are taking to deliver a greener and more sustainable world.

Click here to read

Helping UCC deliver on its sustainability goals

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We caught up with Katarzyna Sroka, Bidvest Noonan’s Site Manager at University College Cork (UCC), to learn about the environmental initiatives being rolled out on-site, and how we are helping UCC deliver on its sustainability goals.

What does your role at UCC entail? 

My role as site manager involves managing the delivery of a high-standard cleaning service across the campus, ensuring a safe and clean environment for all the students, staff, and visitors to UCC. I also work with the Bidvest Noonan team to bring significant changes to our environmental performance on campus and find solutions that will deliver even better value for our client.

I liaise daily with my site supervisory team and the UCC head of departments to coordinate our services on site. We work in partnership with UCC and support all initiatives and activities on campus. 

Can you share some of the initiatives that you and the Bidvest Noonan team have rolled out since taking up the cleaning service at UCC?

At Bidvest Noonan, we are always looking to reduce the impact our services have on the environment. This ranges from improving how we manage waste to minimising our carbon footprint. 

We have introduced a chemical-free cleaning system that converts tap water into a highly effective cleaning agent. This system has made a significant and positive impact since we first brought it on-site in the Rahilly Building. It has made our cleaning process a lot more efficient across campus

We have moved to a greener fleet. Our vehicles on campus are hybrid and electric, reducing our tailpipe emissions and the impact on the environment.

Taking the lead from the UCC Green Campus Forum, we have also introduced regular awareness talks for our people on sustainability. Topics include car engine idling and the impact on air pollution.

We have invested in the best cleaning equipment the industry has to offer. For us, that means equipment that achieves excellent cleaning results while reducing our environmental impact. Our flat mopping floor cleaning system and i-Mop Floor Cleaning Machines all reduce the level of water usage by our teams on campus. 

We also support the university with its sustainability goals. UCC has rolled out a Paperless Office Project campus-wide by the Procurement and General services team. We are proud to help UCC with this project by adopting a paperless approach.

How have the UCC community of students and staff taken to the changes?

We are delighted to constantly receive positive feedback from staff and students. A clean and safe environment is one conducive to learning. We want to ensure students feel comfortable on campus at UCC.

We also received recognition for our sustainability initiatives on campus from the stakeholders on the Green Campus Forum at UCC. Positive feedback like this spurs our team to innovate further.

Have you any other environmental initiatives planned for UCC?

Part of our vision here at Bidvest Noonan is to be so valuable to our customers’ business. This means helping them achieve their strategic objectives, some of which are around sustainability and environmental initiatives. The Bidvest Noonan team is committed to taking all the necessary steps to help UCC achieve its environmental goals.

We have already made a significant impact, but our on-site team is always looking to improve. Our next big project is to identify initiatives that will help reduce our carbon footprint on campus.

What do you like most about your role with Bidvest Noonan at UCC?

No two days are the same and delighted to work with such a fantastic team. We are delighted to see the changes we are making are helping UCC and its sustainability goals. We feel like we are making a real difference on campus for students and faculty and having a positive impact on the planet.

Four Trends Shaping the Future of our Industry

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As Technology and Innovation Director at Bidvest Noonan, Peter Smyth spends much of his time studying innovative solutions and cutting-edge technologies. Peter’s research helps the business to achieve better outcomes for its customers, people, business, and environment.

We asked Peter to identify four areas where innovation and technological advances are beginning to impact our industry.

Cobotics

Cobotics is still an emerging field; however, at Bidvest Noonan, we have begun to introduce cobots to a number of sites where they can add value.

These machines work alongside our people, handling repetitive and monotonous tasks such as large area cleaning. Cobots are not a substitute for cleaning teams, but they can augment them, increasing their resilience and capacity. 

Cobots can offer several benefits. The cobots that we have invested in use up to 80% less water than traditional cleaning methods. They use smart mapping systems to take the most energy-efficient cleaning path and can work in the dark, further reducing energy consumption.

The data captured by our cobots support evidence-based cleaning and the development of valuable insights for planning. Significantly, by handling some of the most monotonous work, cobots improve job satisfaction for our team members and enable them to spend more time on higher-order tasks.

Dynamic Cleaning

Dynamic cleaning improves the productivity and sustainability of cleaning operations. The approach uses sensor technologies to identify which spaces have been occupied and require cleaning and which do not.

Dynamic cleaning enables teams to become more productive, with no time wasted on unnecessary cleaning in unused areas. In addition, cleaning operations become more sustainable as teams use less water, energy and materials overall.

The approach leverages real-time and historical building usage data to improve planning, enabling managers to determine the exact resourcing requirements for every period and every area of the site.

Smart Buildings

Smart buildings use a combination of technologies to improve the efficiency, utilisation and environmental performance of buildings and assets while creating a safe and comfortable environment for occupants. 

Bidvest Noonan uses a range of these technologies at some of its own buildings to monitor and manage building occupancy, powering down unoccupied rooms, spaces, or even entire floors to save energy. We only make these spaces available again when needed.

Using our digital booking system, our building users always have access to the resources they need, such as desks, meeting rooms, smart lockers and parking spaces. 

The insights provided by our smart building technologies enable us to make significant cost and energy savings in areas such as lighting, heating and air-conditioning systems while providing optimum conditions for building users. In addition, the data we gather helps to improve our workplace planning.

Waste Management

Businesses have used waste compactors and balers to manage waste for many years; however, these technologies have continued to advance, and developments in recycling and regulation have boosted their use.

Modern compactors and balers such as those provided by our specialist waste handling business, Ancove, are more powerful, economical and compact. As a result, they efficiently reduce waste volumes by more than 90%; Consequently less space is required to store waste, and fewer waste collections are needed. Additionally, waste materials have become a source of revenue for our customers. They receive payment for valuable waste materials such as paper, cardboard and plastic. This is a win-win situation for business and the environment.

Cleaning and Disinfection: The need to do both

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Tessa Rossi, GMP Microbiologist at Bidvest Noonan, discusses the new Annex 1 revision, the EU guidance document for the manufacture of sterile medicinal products, and what this means for sanitisation in the pharmaceutical sector.

Cleaning and disinfection achieve two distinctly different objectives. Each plays a crucial role in ensuring that a facility and its equipment are ready to be used for pharmaceutical manufacturing.

In light of the new Annex 1 revision, it has become apparent that there is a paradigm shift forcing cleaning and disinfection to be considered as two clearly separate, distinct tasks and that both these aspects have to be incorporated into the contamination control strategy.

Cleaning refers to the removal of all dirt, soil, and residues (non-viable particulates) from a surface. Detergents are used to clean surfaces. Disinfection specifically refers to killing any microorganisms (viable particulates) that are present on the surface. Disinfectants are used to accomplish this but do not necessarily employ cleaning as part of its mode of action.

Aside from the regulatory requirement to separate these two tasks and to include both as part of an effective sanitisation regime, it is also imperative to ensure effective contamination control. Non-viable particulates, such as soil, can often harbor microorganism within it. In addition to this risk, any dirt, debris, dust, and other non-viable particulates all pose a risk to the product itself, with both viable and non-viable contaminants required to be kept within defined cleanroom parameters.

Effective cleaning also primes surfaces and equipment for disinfection, as disinfectants become less effective if surface contaminants are present. Disinfection, in turn, if effective, eliminates viable (microbial) contaminants that could pose a risk to product safety.

An effective sanitation procedure in pharmaceutical facilities should include the following steps, combining both cleaning and disinfection as part of the process:

  1. Removal of larger debris and particulates
  2. Surface rinse
  3. Cleaning with detergent
  4. Post cleaning rinse
  5. Disinfection
  6. Post disinfection rinse (if applicable)
  7. Validation