Cleaning toilets with minimal human intervention

Manpower shortage is common in the cleaning industry driven mainly by tight labour market and the challenges in attracting workforce into the cleaning industry due to the manual nature of works and especially so with the stigma associated with some of the cleaning works such as toilet cleaning. It is one of the main touchpoints which requires attention from the cleaning service partners to manually clean and top up consumables. 

While existing technologies in the market such as sensors may provide some level of situational awareness to enable users in changing their operations to cleaning on demand, it is unable to reduce the reliance of workers in toilet cleaning. 

Challenges

•    The public sector owns a significant number of toilets that must be cleaned manually by our cleaning operators daily. 

•    While we could remodel toilets to incorporate the latest technology solutions, such opportunities mostly occur when there are estate renovation and refurbishment (R&R) works (long intervals). 

•    Manual cleaning sanitary fixtures (such as toilet bowls, urinals, and basin) is tedious, physically demanding to our pool of cleaners and the fixtures can vary across different estates and between buildings in the same estates.
 

General
•    Refer to NEA’s COPEH (Code of Practice Environmental Health) and other relevant published guide/codes for considerations when designing and planning of the solution.
•    Includes a technology disclosure of Foreground Intellectual Property (FIP) as the final project deliverable in the payment schedule amounting to at least 5% of the lump sum payment.
Process
•    The proposal should suggest a workflow that incorporates the solution into the cleaning operations and articulate the rationale. 
•    It should also include a plan for engaging cleaning contractors. 
•    It should also include details of how cleaners are involved in the workflow.
•    Possible exceptions or outliers in the cleaning process should be identified, and the solution should outline how it addresses them. 

Solution
•    should be designed to effectively address the varying types of toilets in the JTC stock. 
•    should clearly outline the limitations and capabilities of the solutions being proposed. 
•    Should explain why a specific toilet cleaning task was chosen for automation.
•    The method (the “how”) to automatically clean specific fixtures (such as sink basins, urinals, toilet bowls, cubicle frame, toilet floor and wall), as well as any necessary development, should be described. 
•    Proposed solution ability to clean other sanitary fixtures should be detailed.
•    Should have provisions to assess and measure the cleanliness of the sanitary fixtures after cleaning. 
•    The solution must address cross-contamination concerns between different cleaning tasks, such as the need for disinfecting before switching adaptors.
•    Provisions to study the considerations for maintainability of the proposed solution, then include it as part of the design (refer to additional info “Design For Maintainability Guide Non-Residential”).

If it is a robotic solution
•    Should have reasonable operating hours between battery charges. 
•    Provide target cost price of solution with detailed illustration of the cost breakdown.
 

The solution would allow the cleaning operators to perform other tasks while the technology solution takes care of cleaning with minimal supervision. When necessary, human intervention should be straightforward and easy for the cleaning operators to handle. The solution should also demonstrate a noticeable improvement in the cleanliness of the toilets.

•    Open to exploring robotics solutions, starting with the most challenging and unpleasant cleaning tasks before gradually expanding to: i) other tasks; and ii) potentially deploying across multiple toilets within the same floor and building.

•    Receptive to material applications that make cleaning easier and result in a noticeable increase in productivity. 

•    Not interested in sensor systems that only trigger attendant to clean, as these are commercially available. We are focused on solutions that actively perform the cleaning task, not just monitoring.
 

Keep within 12 months, the below timeframe is for reference only

Recorded Briefing

You are advised to listen in to the challenge statement briefing here

Please refer to the attached challenge statement documents for full details.

Clarifications 

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