Posted by Vanja Landeck - 16 February, 2021
Specifying the right flooring is vital to ensure that your factory stays safe, hygienic and efficient over its designed life. Get it wrong, and the ongoing costs can be huge in terms of lost productivity, downtime or personal injury. These factors can far outweigh the initial installation cost, whether the flooring is for a new-build or a refurbishment project. Here are eight reasons to choose a Ucrete floor for your production site:
1. Hygiene
Using Ucrete results in improved hygiene, thanks to the flooring’s seamless surface, which is particularly important in the food and beverage sector. Standard floors can be problematic in this environment. For example, with a surface such as tiling, care must be taken to clean the more porous grout thoroughly to avoid dirt and bacteria growth harboured between tiles. Chipped or broken tiles result in voids that can provide a further breeding ground for bacteria. In contrast, Ucrete floors are cleanable to the same standard as stainless steel and do not support bacterial growth. You can learn more about the significance of hygienic flooring for food production and food safety here.
2. Lower Cost of Ownership
Ucrete flooring is more cost-effective than any other floor over its service life, as it needs less maintenance, cleaning and refurbishment than standard flooring options. Weighing up cost in use against initial outlay should form an essential part of the specification criteria. Using Ucrete, you’ll gain many years – and decades – of service through market-leading chemical, temperature and wear resistance.
3. Less Production Downtime – Faster Installation
Loss of production is costly, so reducing or eliminating downtime is crucial for the efficient and productive management of factories. When refurbishment or new installation is required, Ucrete’s fast installation results in less production downtime than many other floors. Using Ucrete, flooring applicators can also cover a large area in a much shorter time when compared to other typical industrial floors.
4. No Cracking
In a production setting, standard floors can be prone to cracking and damage. In some instances, a surface that isn’t monolithic may wobble, shift or even crack if the screed underneath isn’t level, or if there is regular thermal shock. Cracked areas that have allowed water and bacteria ingress into the substrate are a hygiene and cleanability issue, as well as being a potential slip hazard to employees.
Ucrete is known as the World’s Toughest Floor for a good reason – watch the famous Ucrete Destruction Challenge if you need convincing!
5. Fast Refurbishment
Repair and refurbishment should always be about risk limitation and solving existing problems rather than potentially cause more. Here, monolithically bonded Ucrete offers clear advantages in production facilities: lower maintenance and better durability than standard floors, particularly in the first 10-20 years. It won’t crack or spall and absorbs direct impact by distributing it throughout the system.
When old flooring reaches the end of its useful life, safe production can be compromised. Damaged flooring can result in trip hazards, while cracks can harbour bacterial growth. Choosing flooring that will keep maintenance to a minimum manages the impact of lost production time traditionally required to refit a process environment.
Ucrete’s fast-curing systems enable uncompromised permanent fast-track flooring repairs and refurbishments. Floors can be returned to a safe and hygienic condition in the minimum time – they can be back in service in as little as five hours’ cure time at 10ºC. Watch our Ucrete Fast Refurbishment Challenge!
6. Sustainability in Service
Ucrete is a sound choice for sustainability in use, as it needs less energy for maintenance and less water for cleaning than some standard floor surfaces – highly relevant in production areas where a high level of hygiene is essential. The cleaning and maintenance of an industrial floor can account for up to 90% of its cumulative energy demand. By specifying a sustainable Ucrete floor, you can reduce the use of important resources, critical for both the environment and operating costs. When installed correctly, Ucrete floors can provide a virtually maintenance-free flooring solution for in excess of 30 years, even in the most demanding conditions. For example at Magor Brewery in the UK, a Ucrete floor installed in 1984 is still in use. Read more about this success story here.
7. Safety Underfoot
Safety is a key issue in selecting a floor, particularly at production sites with wet process areas. With Ucrete, you can achieve fewer slips, trips and falls than with a standard floor, thanks to its wide range of slip-resistant options.
The cost of slip incidents cannot be underestimated. Slip related incidents in the food industry are significantly higher than the industrial average and are a key contributor to major injuries. In today’s litigious culture, using the best possible floor is the most sensible defence. Achieving optimum slip resistance with a Ucrete floor supported by best practice cleaning and appropriate footwear creates a safe environment for employees.
8. Aesthetic Options
We recently launched Ucrete CS in Europe – an innovative, colour-stable Ucrete system that sets new aesthetics standards. Color stability means reduced surface staining allowing for greater flexibility for safer factory design. Find out more about Ucrete CS.
Safe, hygienic and efficient production is critical to manufacturing businesses. Flooring plays a significant role in underpinning the success of production facilities. When specified correctly, it becomes part of the solution to help drive business success. While individual preferences may vary, Ucrete outperforms standard flooring options in many ways – isn’t it time you considered the benefits?
Learn more about Ucrete Industrial Flooring and its unique characteristics here!
Recently we supported a well-established Austrian dairy with our Ucrete solutions, read up the complete story here: Tradition meets innovation from the floor up at leading Austrian dairy
