Why Grated Metal Floors are the Perfect Choice for Industrial Settings
We’ve made a significant impact on the animal services industry with what we believe to be the best-in-class offering for flooring for veterinarian and animal-focused care facilities. This article seeks to explain some of the most important aspects of these offerings from RACS and will, highlight the beneficial attributes and explore potential implementation possibilities for our grated metal floors.
Professional Operations demand world-class infrastructure and tooling
A veterinary practice, a medical facility for animals, or any other pet-centric facility, including boarding or kennel operations, and even rehab facilities, need the best quality equipment at a long-term value to ensure that they can benefit from total return on investment operationally.
We have also seen our products used for emergency events in housing animals during natural disasters. Our flooring has widespread use in the most prestigious breeding operations and has also been implemented heavily by animal hospitals and rescue operations everywhere. What we have noticed, without question, is that the most successful operations across the entire spectrum in this industry leverage the best tooling and infrastructure over the long term to maintain sustainability and capability day-to-day.
Often, the more mundane tooling gets overlooked because it is stationary or not as tech-driven. We find this type of infrastructure and tooling to be the best way to find passive ROI within your total organizational budget because these items tend to be crucial to sustained smoothness in the organization without being too finicky. Of course, one needs to make the right choice up front in selecting such important but ‘background’ pieces.
Ease of use, maintenance, and safety are the most important day-to-day contributors to positive results in ongoing operations from a passive perspective
Workforce costs are going up. Employee retention is becoming more difficult. Keeping employees safe and comfortable is an ongoing cost of doing business that is paramount in keeping morale high and services sustainable.
While it may seem on the surface to be a bit of a stretch – the happiness of your employees and their capabilities in operational needs for the public-facing and internal needs of your organization is directly related to the tooling and infrastructure you have in place. It’s easy to place every product into the basket of ‘it’s going to help your employees, so buy it’; sometimes, this mentality leads to buyers’ regret because, as a procurement specialist or business manager, you might feel misled.
That’s why, when it comes to infrastructure purchasing, it’s important to evaluate things on their face. Here are some tips for doing so:
- What is the fixed cost of the tooling or infrastructure compared to the time/labor savings over the usable life of the product? Can I reasonably expect the life of the product to be consistent with manufacturer/marketing claims?
- Are the productivity bonuses and promises realistic? Do third parties vouch for the item? What are the ‘deep dives’ about the product, offering you an insight perspective?
- Does the product actually offer a strategic labor advantage that can cut hours in real-time usage? Does the item offer improved safety, efficiency, and viability for the user?
- How long can you expect the infrastructure items to last? Are there tax advantages to the depreciation schedule? Are there multiple layers of benefit for the purchase and subsequent maintenance of this item?
- Will labor hours be reduced in maintenance and cleaning, and/or will the build quality or implementation of such pieces help maintain cleanliness, order, or throughput or enhance what is currently available from those perspectives?
- In the case of working with animals, but also in the broader landscape of service-oriented work, does this purchase enhance safety which may lead to reduced incidence of injury, lower insurance costs, or better handling of the end user? (In the case of veterinary and pet-focused care, this may have multiple end users, including the patient, the staff, and the ownership).
An additional reminder is that labor costs are likely to be the largest total cost line item on your budget. It’s always preferable to minimize excess costs where realistic through better tooling and better resources for employees. This ensures that if you hire your employees correctly, they will have the necessary means to leverage their capacity and help you retain positive results economically.
This is especially true for non-profits, grant-funded organizations, and those that have a capped capacity in intake or growth year over year. The profitability or sustainability of an organization will invariably depend, on some level, on the sustainability of total costs to provide solutions to the paying customer. This means internal resources offer a strategic advantage for leveraging ROI, much more so than competing on the broader market for talent and labor costs.
Why grated floors are the best solution for pet-centric organizations
Here are some proven points of interest for those considering grated floors for their facility:
- Grated metal floors are strong and durable and can withstand the weight of heavy animals and equipment
- These floors are easy to clean, with the grates allowing for the easy flow of waste and liquids
- Grated metal floors can improve the safety and efficiency of industrial settings, providing a stable and slip-resistant surface for animals and workers.
- Floors are never colder than the ambient temperature, keeping animals comfortable.
- There are different types of grated metal floors available, with different materials and grate sizes to suit different needs and budgets.
The evacuation of debris, and waste, like feces and urine, and the ease of cleaning makes the flooring we offer a better purchase from a labor perspective but also a safety perspective.
The heavy-duty build quality of our grated metal flooring ensure longevity, long-term durability, and stability in the workplace. This means more retained value from purchases, better long-term ROI, the potential for savings on injury-related costs, and improvements in extensible care for patients and visitors (our furry friends).
Our proven track record and stable cost structures, paired with the semi-custom or custom-build aspects of our flooring, ensure that you can realize cost improvements over time. The fact that a majority of the installation, even though every installation is at least semi-custom, is made up of mostly modular, and quick shipping in-stock replacement items, means your lifecycle service-specific issues are going to be minimal, generally.
We make custom designs using vastly modular and standardized structures and custom-build only certain aspects of the flooring system, so you get exactly what you need without exorbitant cost outlays for a fully custom implementation. It also means you get your needed infrastructure upgrades on a better timeline than fully custom alternatives.
Testimonials and wrap up
We are proud of our success in the animal flooring space. Our customers are also our biggest evangelists. We would love for you to read through some of our testimonials to see if you can relate to the way other customers are using our grated metal flooring products.
If you feel like RACS grated metal flooring may be a potential option, we further invite you to leverage the expertise of our team to get a quote and answer any questions you may still have about our products. We are excited to meet you and help you determine if our grated metal flooring can be the solution you’re looking for in a pet-focused setting or even beyond.
