CLG Hygiene Supplies is using ToolSense to add a digital service layer to the washroom hardware it distributes, so the hygiene service companies it supplies can prove a service was done, find every unit, and offer their own clients a level of visibility no competitor has matched.
CLG Hygiene Supplies is a supply-chain partner to the hygiene services industry, the companies that service washroom estates at scale. Norman Smith has spent around 28 years in the hygiene business: running one of the largest service providers in his market, three years at Rubbermaid, and acquiring CLG eight years ago alongside partners after its long-standing founder, Costa Loudis, decided to retire.
The starting point
Norman knew the structural problem from both sides of the supply chain. Service operators handle thousands upon thousands of washrooms a day, and the back-end systems range from costly SAP installations all the way down to spreadsheets, even at large companies. Either way, it is hard to deliver consistent service, and harder still to get feedback that a service was actually done. Each unit needs servicing on a regular interval, an air freshener once a month, a soap dispenser, paper towel cabinets, and when something is leaking or not dispensing, the frustration runs back up the chain: the end user blames the service provider, who blames the supplier of the unit.
When CLG was acquired, Norman set out to bring better technology into the industry. He looked at building a smart dispenser locally with electronics and Wi-Fi, but the cost and market readiness made it a long stretch. What he wanted instead was a platform, with QR codes at the centre.
Why ToolSense
The connection came at a trade show: CLG's sales manager wandered off from the dispensers and dryers, found the ToolSense stand, and brought it back. It fit the vision Norman had carried for years almost immediately. After the show, both teams spent many hours, as he puts it, "panel beating and adjusting the system" to take ToolSense into a new field it had not served before, applying its asset and field service model to washroom hygiene equipment.
ToolSense has seen a problem from tracking and looking after equipment in general, and used a cost-effective methodology. They've hit the nail on the head, and that can only benefit the end-user client and people like ourselves.
Norman Smith · Managing Director, CLG Hygiene Supplies
Operational impact
For CLG's customers, the QR-code platform turns a soap dispenser into a trackable asset: service companies can confirm services have been done without difficulty and locate exactly where each piece of equipment is, across estates that can run to thousands of washrooms. It also tackles a costly contract problem Norman describes, where expensive units like hot-air dryers get left on walls as "carcasses" or thrown into a warehouse when contracts move from one provider to another. Several large organisations are testing the system, and one CLG client used it to win and run a national banking group, which reported it was "running ahead because of the system."
What's next
Norman's goal is a partnership deep enough that the two companies are "inseparable." Trials are already extending the model beyond dispensers, into pest-control bait stations at a large university with thousands of stations, and the longer-term ambition is to fold in IoT and even low-cost predictive maintenance as the technology becomes affordable. With most of CLG's clients being facilities-management and integrated-services firms, hygiene is just the first of several categories the platform can reach.
