By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bob Robinson Sr., president of Kaivac Inc., of Hamilton, and a No-Touch Cleaning System called the Kai Zen. Robinson estimates the market is about $200 million for the systems his firm has produced for seven years. The Cincinnati Enquirer/ERNEST COLEMAN

HAMILTON - Bob Robinson Sr. remembers the day - if not the exact hour - that he and a team of cleaning technicians made an historic discovery.

The four salesmen had volunteered to clean the bathrooms at Winton Woods High School for free and do it for 30 days.

They wanted to figure out how to clean toilets, sinks and urinals in a way that did not involve elbow grease, mops, brushes and buckets.

Robinson, president of Valley Janitor Supply Co., knew that those tools were the only option for most janitors to clean toilets and bathrooms and that it had been that way for centuries.

Valley was founded by father-in-law Walter Green, who started the company out of his garage. They'd done well enough selling cleaning supplies to companies. Still, Robinson was not satisfied.

"It was on April 25, 1997," Robinson says, as he turns on the yellow KaiVac cleaning machine in the family-owned company's training center in downtown Hamilton.

"That's the day the light bulb came on: We would mount a pressure washer, chemical injector and vacuum on a unit with enough hose length to leave it outside the restroom."

That was actually the second insight.

The first had come months earlier on a morning when a dismayed Robinson was at a client company to train custodians how to properly clean a toilet. On that day, he found himself on his knees - splashed toilet water hitting his face - trying to train them and wondering: Wasn't there a better way?

And why was a mop - that is, a rag on a stick - still how most custodians cleaned restroom floors?

All it did was move dirt around.

More than seven years and as many as 15,000 KaiVac's after those revelations, this company's system may be well on the way to revolutionizing how tiled restrooms at schools and commercial buildings will be cleaned in the future.

Under its yellow plastic skin, the KaiVac, which costs $3,000 to $5,000 each depending upon the model, is a simple enough machine. A small pressure washer first disinfects the room and then rinses it.

A wet-vacuum unit sucks up the water and cleaner, and finally a finishing-touch blower dries restroom hardware, walls and fixtures.

Other attachments and advancements enable custodians to clean stairways, vinyl flooring, hallways and carpeting and to remove dust in high places.

Bathrooms with walls that are not tile can be cleaned, but the custodian must be more careful.

Robinson, now also president of KaiVac Inc., and his staff are continually tweaking the design, and a display of various incarnations of the KaiVac fills a shelf near the roof of the factory where technicians hand-build each unit.

Robinson, who estimates the size of the market at $200 million, is not alone in believing that his company makes a miserable job tolerable with its "No Touch" approach.

The system and a DVD training component was a top award winner for most innovative product in 2003 at the International Custodial Advisors Network convention in November.

Others in the industry praise the approach.

"We've been involved since it's inception," says Mary Miller, president of Jancoa, a Norwood-based commercial janitorial service that employs 300 people and provides daily custodial services for 10 million square feet of office space in Greater Cincinnati.

"The KaiVac has truly changed the way we clean restrooms in an industry that doesn't change very much. It not only cleans restrooms but it increases the productivity of our staff, probably by 25 percent."

One common lament is that nobody likes to use a dirty restroom, she says.

"With the KaiVac, you're not mopping around dirt but are sucking it up with the extractor. It's incredible," she says.

The company, which employs 26 and has annual revenues of $7 million, has units in 75 local school districts and plans to eventually bring the system to thousands of schools across the nation. "There are 120,000 schools in the United States," says Bob Robinson Jr., vice president of sales for KaiVac.

While about 70 percent of sales are at schools and universities, the system is also used at airports, Great American Ball Park and Riverbend Music Center. Sixteen more are headed to join the 70 already at Cincinnati Public Schools.

Fast-food restaurants, gas stations and big-box discounters also have tremendous potential, says the elder Robinson.

Whenever he flies into a city on a sales call, Robinson can't help but look down at the rooftops and think about KaiVac.

Suddenly, he stops cleaning a faux bathroom at the company training center and acts like he's a passenger in an airplane that is about to land.

"I think, 'Why not a KaiVac there,'" he says, pointing to an imaginary building. "A Kaivac there. There: KaiVac. KaiVac, KaiVac, KaiVac."

Robinson continues to point at imaginary buildings. He figures there is almost no end to this market.

"At one of our school districts up in Alaska," he says, "when kids have spring break and go to Florida, the staff tells us they go KaiVacking. They clean the whole school."

E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com