PortionPac: At a Glance
Overview :
| PortionPac began as an idea in the mind of Chicago manufacturer, Syd Weisberg in the 1950's. As a visionary thinker, Weisberg saw clearly the waste of energy in manufacturing, shipping and disposing of cleaning formulations that were 90% water in steel pails and multi-gallon drums that were being shipped around the world before being discarded. He also saw that some of the cleaning formulations being used in the cleaning profession were extremely hazardous, and that few janitors understood how to correctly dilute the formulation for cleaning. To address these problems, Weisberg founded the PortionPac Chemical Corporation in 1964 with his business partner Marvin Klein . |  |
While this concept sounds logical, the use of portion-controlled cleaners is still not widespread today. Only about 2% of cleaning products are high concentrates in portion controlled packaging. In a time of increasing water shortages, there is still a lot of confusion and waste in the way that we keep our homes and industry clean. Over the years, PortionPac found that education about the best usage of cleaning products became their core business strength. So much so, that PortionPac not only manufactures cleaning products, they help organizations find the best and safest way to motivate their janitors and clean their facilities.
How Portion Control Works
The first thing to understand is that portion control helps us prevent waste and the extra labor involve in misuse of cleaning detergents. If we want to prevent wasteful and harmful use of chemicals, we need to think portion control.
Most manufacturers naturally want to sell more of their product -- they don't put a lot of effort into monitoring whether people actually need the product or not. PortionPac is different. Their goal is to sell the least number of different products in only the amount required to do the job. PortionPac truly follows the model of selling a service espoused in the book Natural Capitalism. In addition, in some markets they sell a set cost program that includes support, delivery and education in addition to the products necessary to do the job. This is the process of Natural Capitalism working today.
So, how does this work in practice? It took PortionPac 40 years of following the mission of its founders -- to not only make a product that sells, but to create a product that changes the way people think about cleaning. Today, PortionPac is working across markets that have found that sanitation, indoor environmental quality and effective cleaning is critical to their success.
For instance, cleanliness is critical to school food service. Today, there are 7,000 schools on their set cost food service sanitation and cleaning program from PortionPac. The schools pay a monthly set cost fee that includes the cleaning products they need plus proper education on how to clean, on proper mixing, and safe usage.
Multi-building accounts such as the Cleveland Library System that has effectively used PortionPac for over 30 years, have found that this set cost program to be highly effective and economical.
In more traditional accounts, PortionPac works with correctional facilities, schools, hotels, hospitals and industrial plants to limit the number of products and help insure proper usage. An industrial example, Boeing was able to reduce costs and simplify its cleaning process by reducing a thousand different brands of cleaning products to 10 with PortionPac products as three of those ten. In the November 2004 issue of Executive Housekeeping Today article Housekeeping Change: Boeing Operating System takes Flight , Lorraine Bartlemay, Manager of Training and Communications of Boeing states, “This cleaning process will work in virtually any business. The net value comes from enterprise-wide consistency.” Systematic cleaning at Boeing has succeeded in reducing the necessary frequency of cleaning, while at the same time improved air quality, sanitation, safety for workers and a cleaner facility at a lower cost.
Cleaning for Green Buildings
| Accounts such as Cornell University credit PortionPac with helping them earn LEED status with the U.S. Green Building Council. Dale Walters, General Manager of Facilities Operations at Cornell, has been working with PortionPac for over ten years, and has great things to say about the value of their sustainable cleaning approach in general. According |  |
| to Walters, “We started using PortionPac products over ten years ago to clean a few small buildings around campus where lugging a five gallon pail of cleaner was too difficult for our staff.” | |
Over time, Cornell realized tremendous cost savings by using just the right amount of product and going from twenty cleaning products to four, while also reducing safety risks involved with handling chemicals according to Walters. “When we sought to create LEED certified buildings, we worked with PortionPac to establish a green house-keeping strategy,” Walters says. “PortionPac products reduced chemical waste through both the proper use of cleaning chemicals and the sheer reduction of packaging (small packets versus large jugs or plastic containers). PortionPac products are a main component of our sustainable cleaning strategy.”
Why is PortionPac a GreenPlants Sustainable Leader ?
There is more to being a Green manufacturer than creating a green product. PortionPac is a GreenPlants Sustainable Leader because the company is on a path of sustainable manufacturing in everything that they do and across all their operations. Their vision permeates everything from process development to human resources management to partnerships.
CMC is partnering with Natural Capitalism to use the Sustainability Helix in a few ways. First, we are using the Helix descriptive framework to apply to companies in the Chicago area that are sustainable manufacturing sustainable leaders who deserve our respect and business. We are then working with these companies to further their development along the helix by developing a long-term sustainability strategy that helps them become even more sustainable or green. In the case of PortionPac, we will work together to promote a more sustainable approach to cleaning everywhere.
We hope you'll find the PortionPac case study inspiring and practical. Natural Capitalism does work, and we can all be a part of accelerating the development of economic development through earth smart and human friendly applications of science and technology. Manufacturing and nature can be partners, if we support and value the work of companies like PortionPac.
