Clean pull handle.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Introduction
Mission
Vision
We believe we can mount a successful fight against preventable contagious infections and keep people healthy.
Shelton Sanitary Systems is a startup that commenced its operations in February 2013 by a team of six tech savvy youngsters and a former senior marketer at freehold. It is a limited company that specializes in the Clean Pull and Turn Clean monitoring systems. It utilizes the modern and recent developments in the information technology industry. It is supported by a complex system of mobile devices support and a combination of software that are able to disseminate the data in real time to those mobile devices. The company is headquartered in Brisbane, United Kingdom and it employs about 200 people. The business that will be started in Brisbane will be a franchise. Its administration structure includes a managing director, human resource manager, an IT administration and a team of technicians that do most of the fieldwork and the day to day technical duties of the day. The business has been running for close to one year. The business falls in the health and sanitation industry. It is a way ahead of the competition because of its immense investment into the technology that provides us with real time responses and we are able to fix most of our system problems (which are very rare) remotely without having to make the trips to every client’s home. Our services are cheap and very affordable. We have a wide range of clients all over the country. The service we offer is that of a reseller but we also add operational capacity to it because we do offer customer support, and we offer a service that is subsidized by the government. We have mobile technicians’ booths almost in every major city in the country with a team of standby technicians in each. The personalized service we bestow to our customers puts us ahead, and it presents them with many benefits which include: efficiency, prompt response, all around the clock service and subsidized prices (Malik et al., 2003).
In five years time the business partners are expected to have looked into a way of going into the international markets. There is a grand plan to venture into the Asian market and then later into Africa. We aim to have grown our market capitalization from $14 million to a projected figure of between $450 and $500 million (Davidson et al., 1999).
- PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
BACKGROUND
Hospital Acquired Infection (HAI) was discovered to be a major threat and hence a solution finding mission became inevitable. It is evidenced in the news, and the hospitals that were established to be unclean or chiefly awful at contagion management are tinted in the media (Boyce, 2002). Deplorably, Boyce further goes on to notice that people do happen to be habituated to disgusting stories of the more serious diseases causing bugs like the MRSA and C-diff, and the noticeable inattention of the hospital staff are poor at basic hygiene. Regrettably, for those people who are patients or have patients and have to hang about in a hospital for longer, the risk of HAI is very real. These infections result from the doorknobs, most handles and those kinds of places that many people in a common building find themselves touching, or holding on quite often. To solve this problem, just as suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Clean Hands Save Lives!” Report (2013), our supplier came up with a witty way to deal with the problem. They developed a sanitizing device for all the hotbeds for germs. Our business steps in to add functionality to these sanitizing devices. We use technology to make these devices have the capability to refill themselves and to also to have ways to send signals to the technical bench without having to notify us on the client’s specific issues. We also supply the sanitizers with both alcohol and non-alcohol gels in order to take care of people with sensitive skin. The monitoring system has both handles to ensure convenience (White, 2003). The Pull Clean is developed for the users to have it swapped at the handles of doors anywhere. It is easy to fit and Altitude Medical (2014) provides the users with installation manuals to ensure that the customers are well guided. They also make provide booklets to educate our customers and it is from it that this photo below has been extracted from:
A tablet PC is showing a real-time bout of data collected from the sanitizing handle being relayed remotely to one of our technicians.
Physical Description
In the below mapped measurements, the physical diagrammatic representation of pull clean handle takes excellent designs which are ergonomically viable. The context of these designs reflect an assembly of standard measurements of between 1.0 and 2.5 mm. ultimately, the series factor involves assembled edge plates as well as improved interface between the internal components and other external components. The inclusive measurements also have two identical grooves which are set at 900 apart. The pull clean handle is hence measured appropriately within the context of square nuts and this is particularly defined in the context of particular applications that are utilized within these enabling areas. The material used is a glossy coated aluminum which is made with a glossy finish (Malik et al., 2003).
Figure 1: Design of a pull clean handle
Source: Stream Hygiene, 2013
Turn clean devices pose an important operational metric which is inclusively based on better handling procedures in door handling, device management and user-friendly composition. The inclusive components have a swapping technology and a more reshaped speed component. Further, it equally includes sanitizer gel which have enhanced technological front in its glossy glass-fiber reinforcement. It is white in colour and this offer important use in hospitals with additional strengthened features for its overall medical use. Further details include additional volumes of up to 2500 uses per every refill. They have batteries which can last 30,000 uses (Clean Hands Save Lives!, 2013).
The gel refill
The minoring system includes systematic mechanism of refilling the tubes. This is done within given structural composition. It is made up of an activation which allows the BaseGel to get absorbed in water in a period of 2-3 minutes. This creates the firm and a stable gel in the next 3-5 minutes. During this period the gel does not expand because the water volume is maintained as prescribed appropriately.
PRICING
Just like the Clinical Excellence Commission proposes, our prices will be subsidized by the government and so 30% of the service fee is unpaid for. The prices are arrived by costing the sanitizing devices and then providing them to the customer to pay in hire purchase terms. The cost of the device is $90. The customer is supposed to pay for the device for a period of 90 months after the initial installation date. That means they will pay $10 a month till they make the last payment. In addition to that, the customer is required to pay $5 of which 2% of it is a tax; 45% is the insurance charge and 43% is the profit that the company makes per month from each device. However, the $10 for each device sold to the hospitals (private and public) and any other public building is paid by the government too. The government subsidy also contributes 85% of the labor cost and other overheads (Griffith et al., 2000).
SUPPLIERS
Our supplies are from the Elesa Models Inc. they provide us with the sanitizing devices, alcoholic and non-alcoholic gel. Lenovo supplies the computer hardware whereas the software is supplied by Feizzel Waiysoft Inc. The global business context implied that the suppliers were sourced from outside Australia due to the quality considerations and pricing factors as well ( Boyce and Pittet, 2002).
3. WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
The investment opportunity got seized after the government called upon the private sector to invest in the fight against the HAIs for they had gone to claim about 100,000 lives in the period 2007 and 2013. The gazette notice number 456 from the health and sanitation category of January 2013; did give a chance for incentives to all those would be able to register companies to supply and provide support in the area of health and sanitation. Company we choose as the franchise is Shelton Sanitary Systems and hence it was able to seize this opportunity to provide the said services and even more. The timing of this venture was also perfect because we came into a business just at the time Elesa was looking for a reseller in the UK. The government signed a deal to subsidize the cost of the devices in order to ensure their fast intake throughout the country and hence reduce the incidences of infections simultaneously (Griffith et al., 2000).
The business has an agreement with the British government that is a pledge to finance 85% of the labor costs and also to finance every device that is supplied to the hospital and to any other public building.
The business exit strategy is solely the fact that after laying a proper network in the country the company will be aiming for nationalization due to the heavy investment that the government has put. The original company members will by that time be aiming to grow and run the franchises outside the UK (Davidson et al., 1999).
Product value
The food production environment involves a number of specific considerations examined within the industry itself. The platform attempts to ensure that the products are technically managed in a valid manner and in a way that is examined and which is viably based on core controls. An important factor relative to this approach is the impact of formulated compliance. The overall technique is itself managed through the well known applications and aided compliance of the pull clean handle products. Further, the quality factor offers unprecedented result and this implies that the product’s components meet the required standards. The cleaning regime standards provide an important cross-sectional review on the directional focus of the product and enhancing the important metrics required to fully comply with the given operational limits of the product. The cleaning regime also indicates that the procedural manufacturing process is attained respectively within the mainstream control of microbiological infections (White, 2003).
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
It’s common knowledge that for a business to be a success, it must be based on the apex of a sustainable competitive advantage which it should derive itself from the way it controls its resources (assets). These resources should not be easily imitated but should also have the ability to be substituted if need be. Any investor is supposed to make the ultimate choice as to which ones of the key resources he should keep. A business should focus heavily on its clients by making sure that its sole purpose is to meet their needs in all ways and in time. These are only possible if the business is able to create the value needed in their goods or the services they sell to the clients. However, maintaining an ideal competitive advantage needs the customers’ loyalty too for the other businesses will be looking to impress them too. The other factors needed to achieve this are: a favourable business location, outstanding products and services catalogue and good distribution channels coupled with superior customer service.
Proper public health when many people do work in shared environments does always become a defiant factor a lot more often regardless of the players involved. The occurrence and subsequent spread of germs get dispersed more often especially from any infected person who coughs or even sneezes and later touches items using the same un-rinsed or un-sanitized pair of hands. This is courtesy of the studies that have looked into this problem in detail and established that, for at the stroke of each minute, an active adult worker in an office environment does touch about 30 dissimilar items and if the person’s hands are contaminated with some germs (bacteria and viruses) that do cause infectious ailments. Hands are accountable for the dissemination of not less than a projected 80% of common communicable ailments. This is enough to show that the unwashed hand of a single employee is a risk too big in any public work setup.
This occurrence of communicable contagions coupled with pitiable hand cleanliness can lead to: worker absence due to poor health, abridged levels of productivity and faults at work resulting from an employee’s sickness, and it also leads to the sick workers’ presence being a disadvantage for they will definitely infect others and lower the attendance in future.
Having a wanting hands hygiene does go on to affect those who do have their proper hygiene even more greatly than those who do not. The fact that they work under the same environment is a problem enough for their counterparts under the same environment for they use the same amenities and hence the possibility of infection spread. The pull clean handles are designed to cleanse all the employees’ hands just by touching/holding on them. The handles offer great ease of portability while at the same time providing a good solution of convenience from anywhere. This is a good applicable solution to deal with employees hand hygiene and it is consistent with any activity that the employees could be engaging in and them important in productivity at work for they deal with the earlier discussed shortcomings.
The Pull clean and Turn clean handles are a good way to decrease the number of days lost at work by common illnesses. This is very crucial for it was reported that employee absenteeism costs USA $227 billion annually due to the reduced productivity resulting from illness. The handles also do a lot to establish some common joint involvement of employees in wellbeing and in the participation of a wellness program at work. It does also trigger a proper hand-hygiene program. And finally it cuts down the cost of maintaining and treating sick employees.
Workplace Wellness Programs
Workplace Wellness Programs are quickly fetching an acceptable agreement status in the business world and 25% to 50% of the workers do have some access and have listed for a health program of sorts.
This is because of the simple reason that companies and such other organizations have woken up to the fact that satisfied, fit employees are a treasured benefit that should be cultivated. They also have taken a vigorous method to the well-being and welfare of their staffs, and hence they do enable them to reap a financial advantage.
Nonattendance at work resulting from ailments is an expensive affair, and research does indicate that:
- In first world countries the regular employee falls sick and is absent from work 8 days in a year.
- The absent and employees working while they are sick are all estimated to cost ~$2,000 per worker per year and accounts for roughly 10% of payroll costs.
- Sick staffs are 20% to 40% more likely to have mishaps or blunders at work.
The most vital way to cut the social and economic challenge resulting from the communicable illness transmission is by means of enhanced workplace hand hygiene.
Relevant studies of these workplace that have adopted infection control plans that have comprised hand cleanliness it has shown real reductions in nonattendance of up to 40%. These contamination control plans are particularly active during cold and flu periods and the times when the stomach flu is rampant.
Wellness Programs contribution is as follows:
- A rise in output.
- An improved the philosophy of a business organization.
- Attraction of valuable staffs who rate personal well-being.
- Holding on to existing workers and hence decreasing employee turnover, enrolment and training;
- Improved worker involvement, originality and revolution, and reduction in absenteeism due to infections.
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
It common knowledge that for a business to be a success, it must be based on the apex of a sustainable competitive advantage which it should derive itself from the way it controls its resources (assets). These resources should not be easily imitated but should also have the ability to be substituted if need be. Any investor is supposed to make the ultimate choice as to which ones of the key resources he should keep. A business should focus heavily on its clients by making sure that its sole purpose is to meet their needs in all ways and in time. These are only possible if the business is able to create the value needed in their goods or the services they sell to the clients. However, maintaining an ideal competitive advantage needs the customers’ loyalty too for the other businesses will be looking to impress them too. The other factors needed to achieve this are: a favourable business location, outstanding products and services catalogue and good distribution channels coupled with superior customer service.
References
- Boyce, J.,and Pittet, M., (2002). Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health-Care Settings, Recommendations of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the HICPAC/SHEA/APIC/IDSA Hand Hygiene Task Force. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
- White, C., R. (2003). The effect of hand hygiene on illness rate among students in university residence halls. American Journal of Infection Control. Vol. 3
- Altitude Medical, (2007)“how to install and use the pull clean handle” 2014.
- "Clean Hands Save Lives!” (2013). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Issue 23.
- Davidson, C. A., Griffith, C. J., Peters, A. C., & Fielding, L. M. (1999). Evaluation of two methods for monitoring surface cleanliness – ATP bioluminescence and traditional hygiene swabbing. Luminescence 14:33-38
- Malik, R. E., Cooper, R. A., & Griffith, C. J. (2003). Use of audit tools to evaluate the efficacy of cleaning systems in hospitals. American Journal of Infection Control 31:181-187.
- Griffith, C. J., Cooper, R. A., Gilmore, J., Davies, C., & Lewis, M. (2000). An evaluation of hospital cleaning regimes and standards. Journal of Hospital Infection 45:19-28.
