AU714940B3 - A method of directing cleaning and/or maintenance services - Google Patents

Description

P/00/011 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990

ORIGINAL

COMPLETE SPECIFICATION PETTY PATENT Invention title: A METHOD OF DIRECTING CLEANING AND/OR MAINTENANCE SERVICES The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: A Method of Directing Cleaning and/or Maintenance Services Field of the invention The invention relates to a method of monitoring discrete geographical areas, such as suburbs or parks and in response to such monitoring deploying cleaning and /or maintenance services to that area.

Background of the invention Whilst the following description explains the invention with specific illustration to deployment of cleaning and maintenance services by a council controlled suburb as the geographical area, it will be apparent that the invention is not so limited and can be applied to other open spaces such as parks.

Typically, a council controlled suburb, such as is under the control of the City of Port Phillip in Melbourne, Australia, may include business and residential areas, beach and foreshore areas as well as significant park lands and roads.

Traditionally, such councils have carried out cleaning services by providing a substantially set timetable for business, domestic and open area (eg parks) refuse collection (eg weekly), supplemented by street cleaning which is also typically carried out according to a set rotation timetable. This has resulted in an entrenched system of cleaning which does not readily respond to the presence of additional refuse due to intervening events. Additional cleaning is usually only initiated as a result of complaints by resident or reports by council workers working in the area.

Likewise, the repair of footpaths and roads within the area is only normally carried out as a result of periodic set inspections or if a resident complains about the state of a particular site.

The inability of the current system to readily vary deployment of cleaning and repair services means that a council responsible for the area may be exposed to significant legal liability and criticism should people or property be damaged as a result of refuse or other defects being left unaddressed in that area for a significant time.

The cumulative result of the current system is that councils are devoting significant resources in cleaning and repair services to areas where they are not needed which is to the detriment of other areas where such services are needed.

Object of the invention It is an objective of the present invention to provide a method of directing cleaning and/or maintenance services to a predetermined geographic area which ameliorates the disadvantages referred to above.

Summary of the invention Accordingly, there is provided, a method of directing cleaning and/or maintenance services to a predetermined geographic area which includes one or more sub-areas comprising the steps of: monitoring one or more sampling sites in each of the sub-areas, each of the sites being statistically representative of predetermined cleaning and/or maintenance characteristics for the sub-area in which the sites are located; measuring the cleanliness and/or need for maintenance of one or more of the sites according to predetermined categories of defects defining levels of cleanliness and/or need for maintenance; comparing the measurements of step to predetermined levels of cleanliness and/or need for maintenance for one or more of the sites measured; and in response to the comparison of step indicating that the predetermined levels of cleanliness and/or need for maintenance are not satisfied, deploying cleaning and/or maintenance services to the sub area measured.

Typically, the cleaning services may be refuse collection, road and park cleaning services whilst the repair services are road and footpath repair services.

Preferably, the geographic area is a suburban area.

Significant efficiency may be achieved by employing the method of the invention. This approach is proactive in that the sampling sites are selected on the basis of them being indicative of the likely state of cleanliness or repair of the sub area in which they are located. As one simple example of this, a corner of a street in a high density residential block may accumulate litter at a rate which is indicative of the overall state of street litter for the streets surrounding that block. By setting a threshold unacceptable level for the level of litter, it is possible by monitoring that site to have an indicator of when cleaning or repair services need to be deployed to the streets surrounding that block.

Further, by adopting a classification to the types of defects which may be found in the geographic area, it is possible to carry out monitoring having regard to the type and amount of each type of defect found. An analysis of the pattern of defect type and its amount can therefore be produced over time which may also reflect predictable changes eg. as a result of different seasons or scheduled events in the areas. This allows a profile of the cleaning and repair needs for a geographic area and any sub area to be established. In turn this allows the cleaning and repair services to be deployed in a directed manner according to the needs of the area.

Typically, the predetermined categories of defects may include fallen branches, recyclable materials, general paper etc. That is anything which would impact adversely on the area.

In the following example, the typical predetermined maintenance may be: levels of cleanliness and/or need for fallen branches 2 dead animals 1 recyclable material 3 silt in gutters general paper 5 leaves cigarette butt piles 3 seaweed odours 1 oil stains 1 ATM receipts 2 posters 3 dog droppings 1 blocked pits/drains 1 weeds Using the method described above, it is possible to more accurately manage the deployment of cleaning and/or maintenance services to a geographic area resulting in significant efficiency of cleaning and/or repair of that area.

4 Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment of the Invention The invention will now be further explained and illustrated by reference to the following example which relates specifically to street cleaning and parks maintenance. Key elements of this embodiment are: 0 detailed planning and surveying of a network of sample points across the area of interest.

Systematic sampling of a statistically significant number of points per week.

Measurement and recording of the number of defects within each point.

Analysis and reporting of immediate incidents and long term trends. Analysis includes use of statistic process control techniques.

Review by management and staff to determine what new actions need to occur in what areas to continuously reduce defect levels and variation in measured levels.

The method of this embodiment was developed in house by the City of Port Phillip to support the measurement and improvement of the quality of 2 of its key services.

Detailed Description of the System Street Cleaning Detailed planning Step 1 agree what is the geographic area to be studied. This was accepted as the municipal boundary for the City of Port Phillip which covers an area of 20.6 square kilometres.

Step 2 define what are the various defects that the data is to be reported, ie besides an overall report, it was also decided that sub reports need to be made available on: S category of the sites; this includes high or low density residential, shopping centres, commercial foreshore, lanes and beaches.

S area; there were 10 areas defined. They correspond to the 10 areas used by the waste management team for bin emptying.

S ward; this would allow reports to be generated for councillors on their particular ward of concern.

I I Step 3 calculate the number of sample points required to ensure that there will be enough points visited every week to allow reporting against each of these 3 dimensions. The calculation needs to also ensure that the total character of the city is included and able to be measured weekly. This was achieved by analysing a map of the City of Port Phillip and establishing adequate and representative sites in each dimension utilising the knowledge of street cleaning team staff.

Step 4 Once sites have been defined on paper, they must then be visited and the actual point where the survey is to be taken is defined and recorded on a survey point description register. A photograph of each point is also taken and included in the area research guide book.

(ii) Systematic sampling Step 1 Statistical tables are used to determine the total number of samples needed to ensure the desired level of confidence for the system, ie a higher level of confidence requires a larger sample number. The level of confidence is expressed as a percentage change required before you can state that a change has occurred. A 5% level was chosen which meant that approximately 250 samples needed to be taken each week and that results need to vary by over 5% before it could be stated (with 95% confidence) that a change in defect levels has occurred.

Step 2- Within this total sample number, the number of samples to be taken within each dimension was then chosen using a proportionally based system, ie as high density represented 25% of the streetscapes, then 25% of the points are High Density.

Step 3 The required number and type of samples was selected from the total list of survey points. A task sheet was then prepared for the researcher/research team. A team of citizen volunteers was selected. Each citizen had a area (usually half a cleaning area) in which they measured defect levels for 4 points. This supplemented the work done by an in-house research officer who also collected a similar number of points in each area. Comparison of results between citizens and the research officer showed there was no difference in the results.

Step 4 In subsequent weeks, the other points were planned to be visited, with selection rotating through the points on the list.

(iii) Measurement and recording Step 1 The research team went to the designated survey points and counted the number of defects. A definition of each type of defect and the unacceptable limits of the occurrence of each is set out in the following table.

Defect Type Shopping High Low Foreshore Beach Lanes Commercia Centres Density Density I areas Residential Residential Litter Cigarette butt piles 3 2 1 1 0 4 4 ATM Receipts 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 Dog Droppings 2 4 5 2 0 5 Condoms and 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 syringes Overflowing bins 5 1 1 2 1 n/a 3 General litter 12 10 10 8 5 15 12 Recyclable 5 5 5 2 2 8 containers Accumulated Debris silt in gutters 5 5 5 5 n/a 10 sand n/a n/a n/a 3 n/a n/a n/a seaweed n/a n/a n/a 10 10 n/a n/a piles of leaves 3 6 8 2 0 8 8 Stains and Posters oil stains 1 2 2 0 0 5 2 posters on Council- 1' 2 2 2 0 3 2 owned infrastructure Weeds individual weeds 3 3 3 5 0 5 3 clumps of weeds 1 2 2 5 0 5 2 The results of each count was written on a survey sheet or stored electronically in a palm top computer, which was then down loaded into a master Excel based spreadsheet.

Manually entered results were typed into the master spreadsheet when the forms were faxed back to the data entry officer.

Step 2 Once the database was refreshed for each week, the results were analysed and detailed report tables produced using the Excel function of Pivot Tables. The tables created manipulated data into unique data sets which allows for the information to be entered into statistical software and also allows immediate determination of obvious trends and changes as they are occurring. Tailoring of the table is also done to allow specific investigation of any area of deatil, eg a focus on geographic area or a specific type of category such as low density residential. Customer (iv) Analysis and reporting Step 1 Graphs were then produced for the tables and forwarded to managers and staff for analysis. Graphs produced consisted of u charts (a type of statistical process control chart) generated by a statistical software package "SQC Pack" an off the shelf software package.

Review by management and staff Step 1 Managers and staff reviewed the results and were able to determine if there was any action needed to reduce one spikes or to address emerging trends. If required, more detailed reports on areas, categories or types of defects could be produced to enable analysis of issues driving performance and to identify any hot spots.

(vi) Conclusion From the results obtained it became readily apparent that there was no close correlation between the traditional periodic deployment of cleaning and/or repair services and the specific cleaning and/or repair needs of the sites in the municipality. Consequently, significant resources were being deployed to area where cleaning and/or repair services were not needed. However, such close correlation could be achieved by these services to the results. That revealed that less cleaning and/or repair resources were needed whilst still achieving commercially acceptable cleanliness and repair standards for the municipality.

Significant savings are therefore expected.

The word 'comprising' and forms of the word 'comprising' as used in this description and in the claims does not limit the invention claimed to exclude any variants or additions 8 which are obvious to the person skilled in the art and which do not have a material effect upon the invention.

Modifications and improvements to the invention will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Such modifications and improvements are intended to be within the scope of this invention.

Claims (3)

1. A method of directing cleaning and/or maintenance services to a predetermined geographic area which includes one or more sub-areas comprising the steps of: monitoring one or more sampling sites in each of the sub-areas, each of the sites being statistically representative of predetermined cleaning and/or maintenance characteristics for the sub-area in which the sites are located; measuring the cleanliness and/or need for maintenance of one or more of the sites according to predetermined categories of defects defining levels of cleanliness and/or need for maintenance; comparing by means of a computer the measurements of step to predetermined levels of cleanliness and/or need for maintenance for one or more of the sites measured; and in response to the comparison of step indicating that the predetermined levels of cleanliness and/or need for maintenance are not satisfied, deploying cleaning and/or maintenance services to the sub area measured.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the cleaning services are refuse collection, road and park cleaning services.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the repair services are road and footpath repair services. CITY OF PORT PHILLIP, A LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONSTITUTED PURSUANT TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1989 NO. 11 24 September, 1999