The truck washing industry must go robotic to deal with the labor shortages in the industry and the OSHA rules considering hydrofluoric acid and other chemicals. Additionally with water tight in many regions, measured and calculated water usage is important as well. Robotic truck wash systems can handle these issues. Unfortunately they are not quite there yet. Why you ask? Well consider the reality of washing a truck and the ability of the current machines in the market place for a moment.
Let us look at a Belanger Truck Wash Unit in this case study; If the truck wash machine takes 15 minutes does 90% of the job needed to satisfy the customer and then the actual human labor brushing and soaping around the mirrors, smoke stacks and fuel tanks is still needed. Then that soaping and brushing to finish takes another 10-min. You are still in it for 25 minutes.
And most hand truck washes can do it in that amount of time, but more labor. Now if the machine could do it in 10-minutes and only leave five minutes of extra work, then you could have two guys soaping at the end and rinse quick. But then do not forget breakdowns, Murphy-ism and of course the ROI on a machine that runs you 200K installed?
That is a hit you must take and you can buy a lot of labor and please a lot of customers for 200K and reap the referrals for doing hand-brush washing. Robotic Truck Wash Equipment is getting there quickly, but it is not quite there yet. Indeed everyone in the industry knows it is needed ASAP. So, consider all this in 2006.
0 comments:
Post a Comment