The seemingly simple economics of purchasing bathroom tissuemay not be as strightforward as you thought.  Jonathan Hooper, of Kruger Tissue, explains some of the hidden complexities and how to maximise your budget.

In a complicated world there is every reason for washroom dispensers and tissue buyers to want to look for the simplest way to evaluate competing claims. Often and perhaps not unreasonably, regarded as a commodity purchase, cost is king.

The maths are none to complex. The cost of the roll of tissue divided by the number of sheets on a roll, gives you the price per sheet. There’s the base line established then. In high usage areas, particularly those where the very highest of hygiene standards is not an absolute priority, quality is less of an issue. So then cost per sheet is what it’s all about. Simple!

A familiar refrain and let’s be honest, not a wholly unreasonable standpoint. When there is little need to impress, when throughput is high, often in bursts of activity such as at (say) football grounds or airports, then having sufficiently well stocked dispensers and a clean facility, are the priorities.

What is the value in looking beyond cost per sheet or cost per dry? If the proposal isn’t, at first glance, the least expensive option, what other aspects need to be considered? The aesthetics of having all the dispensers looking pleasingly uniform, the advantages of dealing with a single supplier may no doubt be factors, but they clearly are not exclusive to any one single manufacturer. Now it is clear that there may be low usage situations where the dispenser aesthetics and the drying capability of the tissue take greater prominence, and price is less of an issue, but in high volume areas, especially if there are sudden rushes of traffic that have to be dealt with; surely not! So the question remains, why bother?

Well how about the fact that such a buyer, maybe through a lack of training and subsequent lack of knowledge, is not buying the most cost efficient deal around at all. In fact he or she may inadvertently be actually costing the company more as a result of buying apparently cheaper tissue. Does this sound something of a wild claim? Some smoke and mirrors trick that make a simple piece of arithmetic complicated to someone else’s benefit somewhere down the line.

Consider this key concept. The equation is perhaps after all, not such a simple one. Take that on board, open the mind and those professional facility managers who come around to that idea can recognise and deliver real cost benefits, bottom line profits, to their employers and customers. So how hard is that going to be? Well it is really only about thinking things through and putting them into what are usually very familiar contexts.

The first aspect to consider is about control. That itself then splits into two key areas, the dispensing of the tissue and the on-going filling and the refilling of the dispenser.

Dealing with dispensing first. Many dispensers are designed to provide controlled paper consumption. They do not allow continuous pull through and by presenting the towel to the user as a flat sheet, the drying area is maximised. So the user can’t pull out great handfuls of tissue which they don’t actually need and yet are still able to dry their hands properly. These people aren’t hooligans and vandals, they are just doing what human beings do. Presented with a drying medium that draws through like a rope, they have no practical and easy way of discerning how much tissue they need to dry their hands. So they take what they think they need and then a bit. Just in case!  Presented with the flat towel, they feel qualified to make a judgement. They need two or three sheets. The lever controlled dispensers makes them makes them think each time before taking a further sheet. That slows the process of coming to a decision. Two 2ply sheets may be sufficient to dry their hands. A 1ply towel may need more. The point is that the manner in which the tissue is dispensed makes it a more deliberate and thus less wasteful decision process than simply grabbing armful of the stuff, just in case. The consequent reduction in waste tissue from controlled dispensing is obvious when you think about it. Significantly in quantitive terms, studies monitoring continuous pull through dispensing as opposed to controlled dispensing, have recorded excess waste as high as 35% for the former method. Hang on to that number.

The other control area to address is the refilling of the dispensers. With a single roll dispenser, nobody would blame the stadium facilities operator, who seeing that the roll is nearing the end and knowing that the full time whistle is about to be blown, changes the roll to make sure that there are no (or at least hopefully less!) unpleasant consequences when the crowd make their way home. Good decision though that may be deemed to be, perhaps 20% of the roll may still be usable. It won’t be used though. It will be thrown away as waste. So by combining these dispensing and refilling results, suddenly what seemed to be a simple arithmetical answer to achieve the most economical cost in use solution is perhaps out by as much as 35%. And not in a good way!

Let’s now consider the second aspect. We have spoken blithely of changing rolls of tissue and of excess waste in dispensed tissue, but maybe we have not yet thought through the other ramifications of those statements.

The regular monitoring and cleaning regime for the washroom facility is an expertly devised plan of work to give the most efficient and effective balance between the desired high hygiene and presentational standards and the costs of achieving them. Changes in the method of dispensing tissue can have dramatic and perhaps unexpected consequences. For example, if there is excessive over usage of tissue, washroom waste containers can quickly become both an eyesore and a slips and trip hazard when they are overfilled. Simple to correct, of course, just empty them more often. So more monitoring visits are needed. So how much added cost is involved there? Well we don’t know. The answer must inevitably be dependent upon each organisation and all will differ to a greater or lesser extent. What we do know is, it isn’t free! More work, more employee time expended, more cost. Similarly there is the issue of additional stocking and storage for the extra tissues that are going to be needed to replenish single roll dispensers whose content has been prematurely and wastefully discarded. They don’t walk there by themselves and if the idea of working out the cost of the necessary additional floor space (and we have sympathy here!) is perhaps a little too tortuous to contemplate, it does highlight the way to arrive at cost in use calculations that establish robust criteria by which to make proper management decisions.

The actual type of paper used in the dispensers can be looked at in other ways too. When roll towels are the preferred option, it is worth looking at the options that are available and which are the most appropriate. There will always be the entry level towel which may be the most cost effective solution, just as better quality variants may make sense when the individual drying performance is assessed, but more radically, there are situations where less obvious answers may be found. It is a sad fact that there are instances when the highly developed minds of some of the populace are focused entirely on stuffing hand towels down the toilet. The cost of using flushable tissue for the hand towels has to be taken in the context of the charges levied to unblock the said toilet of non flushable tissue. There are institutions and organisations where the cost of such tissue represents a true saving given the frequency of the occurrence, reflecting the apparent inability of those sad individuals concerned to come up with a satisfactory alternative source of amusement!

In less negative vein, multi purpose roll towels can also be useful in situations, say a kitchen environment, where there is a need to both dry hands and wipe spillage. One dispenser, one tissue, both jobs done. Again, it is about making a more holistic judgment than merely cost per sheet.

These are real costs that should properly be taken into account when making accurate and professionally detailed analyses of cost in use statistics. They can make significant savings without huge additional effort. Just a more professional view of the interrelated costs that deliver great washroom solutions and happy employers and customers. So perhaps not such a simple equation, but after all, not so difficult either.

Steven Warburton
Brand Manager
Kruger Tissue
Ashburton House
Ashburton Road West
Trafford Park
Manchester
M17 1RY