Evaluating Suppliers: How To Choose The Right Partner For Your Sluice Room Project
Can your sluice room suppliers tick all eight boxes?
There are eight key factors to consider when evaluating partners for a sluice room refurbishment or when buying new medical pulp macerators and bedpan washer disinfectors for your hospitals or care homes.
Choosing the right supplier is crucial for maintaining the highest standards of hygiene and efficiency in healthcare facilities. Here are some of the essential factors to consider…
READ OUR DETAILED GUIDE TO SLUICE ROOM EQUIPMENT
1. Expertise and specialisation
Look for suppliers that actually design and manufacture medical pulp macerators and bedpan washer disinfectors. They will have greater expertise than those that simply resell them as part of a wider range of healthcare products.
This specialisation ensures the supplier has in-depth knowledge and experience of maintaining and servicing sluice room equipment for optimum performance and reliability. Your supplier should be able to demonstrate how to get the best out of your sluice machines more cost-effectively – ensuring superior operational performance, maximum machine uptime and greater budget savings.
As a world-class manufacturer of medical pulp macerators and bedpan washer disinfectors, DDC Dolphin has a huge breadth of experience when it comes to servicing, maintaining and repairing sluice machines – not just ours but also those of all the other manufacturers.
We know exactly why other manufacturers’ machines break down – which enables us to make our equipment more robust and reliable.
2. Regulatory compliance and certifications
Suppliers should have a strong track record of compliance with healthcare industry regulations and certifications. Compliance with infection control and waste management guidelines is crucial to ensure the safety of hospital patients, care home residents, clinicians and visitors.
DDC Dolphin’s certifications include:
- SafeContractor – a thorough assessment of health and safety policies, procedures and practices. This includes risk assessments, safe working practices, emergency procedures and compliance with legal requirements.
- Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM) – recognition and validation of our professional expertise in this specialised field. It confirms that DDC Dolphin has the necessary knowledge, skills and commitment to maintain the safety, functionality and sustainability of healthcare facilities.
- Constructionline Gold – Constructionline is a procurement and supply chain management service that helps both public and private sector organisations find and engage with pre-qualified construction contractors and suppliers. Gold goes above and beyond PAS 91 requirements.
- CE Marking – this symbol confirms that DDC Dolphin products comply with essential health, safety and environmental requirements set out in European Union directives and regulations.
- ISO 9001 – the international Standard for Quality Management.
3. Experience – the crucial factor
Experience is unbeatable. Your chosen supplier should have a proven and significant level of experience in the design and manufacturing of medical pulp macerators and bedpan washer disinfectors.
An established history of successfully implementing similar projects in hospitals and care homes is a strong indicator of reliability and competence.
DDC Dolphin was founded in 1991. We have at least three decades of highly specialist experience in engineering infection prevention and control equipment that safeguards hospitals and care homes around the globe.
Discover 10 reasons why it pays to choose DDC Dolphin.
4. Custom configuration and scalability
Your ideal supplier should offer equipment that can be configured to meet the specific needs and space constraints of your hospitals or care homes. Your supplier should also be able to provide scalable solutions that can adapt to the changing requirements of your healthcare facilities over time.
DDC Dolphin offers a wide range of sluice machines. Their software can be reconfigured to suit your requirements – so the equipment performs with maximum effectiveness and efficiency. Sluice room refurbishments are tailored to your exact requirements; this seamless turnkey solution means DDC Dolphin is your single point of contact – ensuring quality, consistency and accountability, and saving you time and money.
5. Sluice machine reliability and durability
Your sluice room equipment should be dependable, durable and capable of withstanding the unique and unrelenting demands of a busy healthcare environment.
Sluice machines should be constructed from high-quality components and materials to increase uptime (and longevity) and prevent unplanned repairs. This focus on quality helps to stop machines from breaking down.
Machine failures are more than just an inconvenience: they increase the risk of infection outbreaks.
It’s logical that planned preventative maintenance (PPM) will help to keep your medical pulp macerators and bedpan washer disinfectors running smoothly and efficiently. But what is less obvious is how much money PPM will save you. View this infographic to find out more.
6. Sluice room equipment service and support
A reliable supplier should offer comprehensive customer support, including installation, training, maintenance and troubleshooting services. Quick response times and a strong commitment to after-sales support are essential.
Good service and swift support save lives. They are essential in helping to keep your hospital or care home free from healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).
Care and maintenance packages tailored to your requirements will also help to make your infection-control budgets stretch further.
Repair and maintenance agreements are important. Ask about:
- Engineers’ expertise – and are the teams employed directly by the manufacturer or are they third party providers?
- Call-out times – will the service level agreement (SLA) be flexible enough to meet your needs?
- Training for your staff – this matters because untrained or poorly trained staff can inadvertently damage equipment, risking machine breakdowns and infection outbreaks.
Furthermore, look for support that includes the discounted supply of sluice room chemicals such as:
- medical pulp macerator disinfectant
- wash and scale inhibitor for bedpan washer disinfectors.
Also, your supplier should be able to offer you a secure online portal that provides at-a-glance information on machines’ condition, operational history and servicing/maintenance requirements.
This portal will help you to make sure your sluice rooms are operating safely and as efficiently as possible. Like so many other aspects of choosing the right supplier, it will save you time and money and give you peace of mind.
7. Environmental considerations
Look for suppliers that are environmentally conscious and offer energy-efficient solutions. Eco-friendly features such as reduced water consumption and improved power efficiency can contribute to cost savings and sustainability.
This is particularly important to the NHS which is working hard to meet sustainability targets. DDC Dolphin macerators and bedpan washers are designed to use less energy and less water – especially the:
- Pulpmatic Eco+ – the most environmentally friendly, economical and hygienic medical pulp macerator on the market
- New Panamatic Midi bedpan washer disinfector. Based on a full load, the new Midi’s enhanced capacity makes it 33% more energy-efficient and 33% more water-efficient than the previous model. So you can wash more utensils for the same energy and water consumption as before.
8. Cost and budget considerations
While cost is a factor, it should not be the sole determinant. You should consider the overall value and return on investment provided by the equipment – taking into account considerations such as reliability, long-term cost savings, and the quality of service and support.
It is often said that quality costs you no more in the long run. Actually, that’s an understatement in the world of sluice room equipment – because quality will save you money.
VIEW OUR FULL RANGE OF SLUICE ROOM SOLUTIONS
Have you seen these related articles?
