Washing Machine

Like the many commercial vehicle fleet cleans it provides, Wash It Australia has always been thorough.

Since its establishment in 2008, founder and CEO Ben Hennock has worked tirelessly to grow his Brisbane business, born from his entrepreneurial spirit, a personal loan, some luck after winning a radio contest and, in his eyes, a then-untapped market with a world of potential.

Wash It Australia’s operations started quite humble, but didn’t stay this way for long.

Initially comprised of Ben, a couple of his high school friends and a few pieces of equipment, the company’s diligent and meticulous washing services cleaned a path for greater expansion and success.

Some 17 years later, and the outlet has transformed into a near 200-person team helming 15 Isuzu trucks to clientele in nearly every major capital city across the country.

Now, while the company prepares to open its new Darwin site later this year, it is now evident that this methodical approach is not just present in truck washing, but in fact every aspect of Wash It Australia’s operations and tasks.

According to National Safety Compliance Officer, Mitchell Robertson, the company’s thorough and persevering operations enable it to be greatly adaptable, even something of a superpower.

“We are always looking for ways to make our operations more efficient,” Mitchell says.

“If a solution involves something we haven’t done previously, we will find a way to do it.”

This desire to maximise operational efficiencies manifests itself differently across the company’s many facets.

Wash It Australia’s washing schedules and servicing agreements for its customers, for one, have undergone many iterations as the company has expanded to assist fleets around the country.

Today, the adaptability and flexibility of the company’s washing service is an integral aspect of its value proposition, being able to provide thorough cleaning solutions to a wide array of customers with very specific cleaning requirements.

“Every customer has their own unique site and fleet, so we need to provide flexible solutions,” says Alana Kennedy, National Account Manager.

The extent of this versatility is determined with a diligent checking process: Wash It Australia appraises the sites of its new customers to assess all factors which could change their value proposition.

The fleet size, wash frequency, site access, attendance times and level of risk present all contribute to a customer profile, which then dictates how Wash It Australia will employ its services.

“These factors are imperative to planning our operations,” Mitchell adds.

“Some customers that we service are only available during the week, while others may only want our service on the weekends. Specialty customers like fleets for supermarkets or garbage trucks each have their own specific schedules we need to adhere to.”

Wash It Australia is able to service these specialty customers with certain accreditations, like the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) sanitation certification, which licences the company to safely clean the vehicle interiors of food-handling fleets.

In addition to adaptability in its washing services, Wash It Australia is also a keen developer of its internal processes, undergoing constant technological innovation to keep the company operationally competitive. Many of these internal processes have been made more efficient through the integration of modern technology, something that has taken on various forms during the near 20-year life of the company.

Many of the company’s formerly analogue approaches to certain tasks when Alana Mitchell joined the team have now been entirely replaced — most notably, the company’s invoicing system, which keeps track of the registrations of fleet vehicles that have been washed on a national scale.

“I remember putting everything on paper and having to type every registration on a spreadsheet, along with the invoice, to then send to the customers so that they could see every vehicle that was washed,” Alana recalls.

Mitchell particularly spearheaded the endeavour to modernise this process with technology.

“About six years ago, I started looking into ways that we could streamline this process and take the middleman out of recording our data,” he says.

“That’s when we came up with the first iteration of our Data Management System. It was a simple online spreadsheet with some formulas put into it. Team members would scroll through a list, select the fleet number they were after, label it as either an interior or exterior wash, and then it would save onto that file.”

This DMS, now on its fifth generation, has been changed to accommodate Wash It Australia’s growing business capabilities.

As the company’s value proposition now works across the country, Mitchell’s DMS helps to invoice customers in different parts of Australia and also prevents workers from re-washing vehicles that have already been washed.

Similarly, the adaptability of this technology and its diligent application both play an essential role in nurturing Wash It Australia’s customer relationships; the company’s large databases also hold images of fleet vehicles after they have been washed, taken by Wash It Australia employees with their business-supplied iPads.

These images serve as proof of Wash It Australia’s thorough work to customers and offer peace of mind to them as a result, which can be particularly important given that in certain circumstances, the Wash It Australia crew can be the only people on customer lots.

The company’s modernisation does not stop there. Looking to the future, Alana and Mitchell are already in the midst of another innovative rollout.

“The newest technological process that we are working on at the moment is providing feedback cards on all of our customers’ vehicles,” Mitchell says.

“These cards contain QR codes which can be easily scanned, and links back into our system, allowing us to track any vehicles that are being reported with consistent issues. The innovation started with our DMS programming but is now extending to our maintenance systems and equipment tracking.”

Wash It Australia’s fleet-washing capabilities have grown exponentially since the company’s inception.

Fuelled directly by the right balance of a thorough business approach and constant push to innovate, the company’s adaptable and versatile value proposition is sought after by transport companies and beyond.