There’s nothing more powerful than a first impression. In high-traffic venues, every visit to a restroom is a judgement on the entire operation. Restrooms silently communicate a company’s commitment to reducing germ transmission and, in turn, the value they place on guests. The careful planning and hard work of a Facility Manager and their team is the invisible force that helps ensure a positive experience.

Restrooms reveal how much you care

With the increased public awareness of hygiene risks in the post-COVID era, ensuring that restrooms are properly sanitized and fully stocked is one of the best ways to boost user satisfaction in a high-traffic building. Studies show that people pay close attention to the cleanliness and upkeep of restrooms in malls, airports, stadiums, schools, hospitals and other high-traffic buildings. In a recent survey,¹ 83% of respondents said that the condition of a restroom reflected how much a company cares about employees and guests. The impact of a suboptimal first impression goes far beyond the restroom, too: 74% of those surveyed said that if a restroom is not clean, they believe that the rest of the facility must not be clean either.

Fighting germs with smart restroom technology

When approached strategically, technology can have a positive impact on both your germ-fighting efforts and the impression that guests have of your facility. Touchless restroom fixtures are a great start for reducing contamination risks but making sure that they are always filled and ready to use requires time, planning and labor. Tighter budgets, staffing shortages and employee turnover can make achieving this goal challenging. Fortunately, there is a solution. The next-generation smart restroom platform Onvation^® SmartFit^™ Technology from Kimberly-Clark Professional is a powerful tool to help Facility Managers succeed.

Onvation is a smart connected software solution that helps ensure:

• Dispensers are always filled
• Labor is allocated efficiently
• Product waste is reduced
• Product inventory is managed efficiently
• Restroom complaints are reduced
• Overall costs are reduced

Most importantly, it does all this while helping facilities reduce germ transmission and provide an outstanding guest experience.

The challenge of high-traffic restrooms

Restrooms in high-traffic venues are hotspots for germ transmission due to constant use and frequent contact with surfaces. Traditional restroom management methods rely on labor-intensive manual checks and static schedules, making it a struggle to keep up with demand—which can lead to complaints, wasted resources and hygiene risks. Smart restroom technology takes a proactive approach by leveraging real-time data, predictive insights and touchless solutions to create a more efficient path to clean, well-stocked restrooms.

Real-time monitoring and data analytics

Restocking restrooms using inflexible traditional schedules can result in wasted paper and soap, misallocated labor, empty dispensers and unhappy users. Without accurate information on the state of material in restrooms at any given moment, Facility Managers have to craft replenishment schedules based entirely on estimates.

If the visit happens too soon, valuable material is wasted and staff is not deployed optimally. If done too late, users encounter empty dispensers and Facility Managers get restroom complaints. Looking at the bigger picture, this challenge can also prevent maintenance teams from focusing on higher level cleaning work.

To empower Facility Managers with the information they need to optimize replenishment, Onvation provides continually updated information on restroom usage patterns, supply levels and maintenance needs. This data-driven approach allows for proactive management and informed decision-making, helping eliminate the guesswork behind restroom servicing.

How it works

Real-time usage data and device status information is collected from smart dispensers, sensors and fixtures, and is then sent to Onvation. This data is aggregated with historical data and analyzed to uncover predictive insights that improve the maintenance of restrooms. Onvation empowers facility teams with actionable information such as:

• Replenishment alerts for paper towels, tissue and soap
• Real-time supply levels for all dispensers
• Restroom utilization and peak usage times
• Early notification of potential maintenance issues

Facility Managers and team members can easily check the status of restrooms and receive dispenser refill notifications via the Onvation Dashboard and mobile app.

Reducing costs and helping achieve sustainability goals

By continually monitoring the status of dispensers throughout the building, Onvation enables facilities to save both time and money while helping ensure that germs are kept in check. Instead of adhering to an inflexible schedule for visiting each restroom 3-4 times a day to examine product supply levels, staff can respond to replenishment alerts received via the Onvation app as needed and focus their efforts on higher level cleaning tasks like disinfection procedures.

In addition to saving on labor costs by helping eliminate premature refill trips, Onvation helps reduce waste by preventing partially used paper rolls and soap cassettes from being replaced. This saves money and helps facilities achieve sustainability goals.

Improved operational efficiency

Implementing Onvation smart restroom technology can lead to significant improvements in operational efficiency across building management:

• Reduced labor costs through optimized cleaning schedules
• Decreased downtime due to proactive maintenance
• Streamlined inventory management based on continually updated usage data

Enhanced reputation and user satisfaction

Clean and well-maintained restrooms can have a positive impact on a facility's reputation and user satisfaction. Smart restroom technology like Onvation helps:

• Reduce complaints and negative feedback
• Improve the overall perception of a facility
• Alleviate concerns about return-to-office mandates
• Increase the likelihood of return visits and positive recommendations

Success stories from high-traffic venues

To see the impact of smart restroom management in the real world, Onvation examined four months of restroom data from ten Onvation customers. The sample included customers in a range of locations, market segments and building sizes. To provide a baseline, data was collected for one month prior to the deployment of Onvation, and then for 90 days after the system was in use.

The results of the study are truly eye-opening. Customers saw significant improvements for several critical measures:

• Savings on Towels, Soap and Tissue: Prior to implementation, on average these facilities were spending $43,592 annually on towels, soap and tissue, with $20,488 of that wasted due to premature refills. With Onvation, they were able to reduce early refills and bring their annual spend down to $30,950.
• Improved Labor Efficiency: Without Onvation, these facilities were spending $93,041 for two cleaners to perform three top-to-bottom cleaning rounds, checking each dispenser per day.² With Onvation, they were able to eliminate one cleaning round per day and reduce labor costs to $62,028.
• Reduced Tenant Complaints: Before Onvation, on average these facilities received four restroom-related complaints per day. With 261 working days and an estimated cost of $31 for each complaint,³ that adds up to $32,364 per year. With Onvation, they were able to reduce restroom complaints by up to 75% to one per day, bringing the annual cost of complaint response down to $8,091.

Putting these savings all together, these facilities were able to reduce their costs by an average of $68,052 annually and enabled teams to perform the deep cleaning and disinfection procedures needed to help reduce germ transmission.

Making it easy to make your restroom smart

From the initial implementation of Onvation to day-to-day operation, Kimberly-Clark Professional helps Facility Managers every step of the way:

• Smooth Installation:  Our best-in-class installation team gets dispensers and the IoT network in place with a minimum of interruption.
• Onboarding and Ongoing Support: Our dedicated customer support team trains staff and managers on how to use the system. Once Onvation is up and running, they do monthly check-ins to ensure that managers are getting the most value from the system.
• Simplified Sourcing: The Onvation platform paired with the trusted family of Kimberly-Clark Professional products makes it easy to extend smart technology across the restroom with a single US-based partner.
• Continual Innovation: Kimberly-Clark Professional is excited to be a pioneer in facility management solutions.

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Take the first step to a smart restroom

Visit the Onvation homepage to learn more about how it can help your facility.

¹ Kimberly-Clark Professional, Hygiene Behaviors Consumer Study, May 2020
² Assuming 2 cleaners at an average hourly rate per cleaning round per working day; 40-restroom building with 8 dispensers per restroom.
³ $31 per complaint, ISSA Value of Clean White Paper, 2012