“I was looking for a vendor that would be a
partner in our cleaning program....”
- Stephen Kennedy

For more than two decades, Stephen Kennedy has worked in the cleaning industry. Starting at age 20 in San Francisco, Kennedy worked in the contract cleaning of bars and restaurants in that metropolitan area. He moved to the east coast to the town of Trumbull, Connecticut where he could attend college during the day and work the night shift as a custodian for the Trumbull Board of Education. Kennedy has worked there ever since progressing over the years to head custodian, team leader and ultimately to his position today as plant administrator. The Trumbull public school system encompasses a total one million sq. ft. spread across 12 buildings. Kennedy is responsible for managing the school custodians, overseeing maintenance projects and performing other managerial functions related to tthe facilities.

Kennedy also is active locally promoting energy efficiency and conservation in his role as a member of the Trumbull Energy Management and Conservation Committee. He is a strong proponent of the use of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) High Performance Building Construction Standards.

Three years ago, the Trumbull public school system began to evolve from a traditional cleaning system to a Green Cleaning program. As a part of that process, Kennedy oversaw the revision of the school board’s request for proposals (RFP) to industrial cleaning product suppliers to reflect an innovative new strategy. Recently, The Ashkin Group interviewed Kennedy about the new approach and his experiences transitioning the Trumbull public school system cleaning system to a Green Cleaning program.

The Ashkin Group: How would you describe the Trumbull Public School System Green Cleaning program?

Kennedy: For us, Green Cleaning is about introducing processes that decrease the use of cleaning products in general and specifically reducing the use of harsh, noxious cleaning chemicals. We are promoting school practices that help to reduce cleaning demands, for example, we limit eating in classrooms and do not schedule events where food will be served in carpeted building areas.

We simply ask ourselves, what can we do to make the cleaning process greener? Also, for me it’s about trying to find a balance—finding the safest possible product that still gets the job done. It’s a very different approach from how we did business in the past. For example, we may have identified a very effective stripper for removing various floor finishes, but the product was so harsh that it could easily damage floor tile or cause injury to a worker if it was used improperly. The product was just too dangerous to be using in schools.

 

The Ashkin Group: I understand the Trumbull Board of Education revised its RFP for cleaning products and services in 2005 to reflect a whole new purchasing strategy. Would you describe it?

Kennedy:  For the past several years, an increasing number of cleaning product and service providers were offering us more ancillary services for free. For example, suppliers offered free Material Safety Data Sheet (MSD) training, instruction on cleaning specific building areas such as bathrooms, how to correctly strip a floor and so on. We thought if they are offering these great services for free, why don’t we formally make them a part of our RFP so we can identify the specific training and support we need?

I was looking for a vendor that would be a partner in our cleaning program, a vendor who would feel it had a stake in the outcome, a business that defined their success selling cleaning products to the school district the same as we defined the success for our cleaning program.

To help choose a new vendor, we also created a vendor rating system. We increased the scope of custodial supplies we were seeking to purchase and related services so we could find the vendor that best met our needs. We even took into consideration factors like whether or not the vendor had a website with an online catalogue, offered online ordering, managed customer inventory and most important to us—if they would work one-on-one with our custodians in the field. When they would come to take inventory and prepare an order, we requested they also meet with our custodians and ask them about any challenges or problems they might be having with the cleaning products or processes. We wanted them to help trouble-shoot and brainstorm solutions.

It’s a strategy that has worked really well and excluded vendors that were just trying to sell us products without adequate support.

 

The Ashkin Group: Can you describe the vendor rating system in more detail?

Kennedy: It is a list of 11 categories of factors that can total up to a maximum score of 82 points. We use it to examine the strengths and weaknesses of a potential vendor. We put price at the top of the list and assigned it a possible total of 15 points. Next we listed product quality and confidence and gave it a total of 10 possible points. Then we listed several other factors that can achieve scores totaling eight, five or three points depending on how the issue was valued. Clearly, it’s a subjective process but it has worked really well.

 

The Ashkin Group: What are the key mistakes you think vendors making in selling Green Cleaning products and services?

Kennedy: In reviewing new vendors, I saw that some did not provide adequate product support. They may have a good salesperson but if that person is out of town, no one else may be able to help answer a question. Also, it doesn’t help if a vendor, the person that should be the expert, isn’t as educated about Green Cleaning as I am. When it comes to Green Cleaning, some vendors clearly lack true expertise.

Another big mistake I’ve seen is the lack of experience and understanding of what it means to be a cleaner in a public school system today. Our vendors need to understand we have limited resources and our workers are stretched very thin because they are often providing a variety of other services in addition to custodial. We probably don’t have a couple of hours to simply experiment with a product without very good reason. The better companies seem to have a good sense of what it means to be a custodian today and all the stresses involved.

 

The Ashkin Group: What are your key insights about this entire experience?

Kennedy: Green cleaning is about more than just products. It’s a process. It’s important to make sure your employees know what you’re doing and to establish good suppliers who are able to provide adequate support, such as training and education for your custodians. More important than who you choose to supply your product is how your workers use the product. By increasing a vendor involvement with your workers that use the product, you create a partnership to sustain the best possible cleaning program.

The changes we’ve made have opened up new lines of communication between the school system and our suppliers. By conferring with our custodians directly in the field, our vendors have a very good sense of how the workers are responding to and using new products. This has helped improve our cleaning results. The vendor managed inventory system means our guys get the cleaning products they need when they need them. Also, the process has given our custodians a greater sense of professionalism and expertise because they are taking the lead, with our vendor, in troubleshooting and problem solving. Our workers now have a greater personal stake in the outcome.

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For more information about the Trumbull board of education new RFP strategy and its vendor rating system, please contact Stephen Kennedy at: kennedys@trumbullps.org