How CleanabilityIQ measures the operating consequences of design

Cleanability is the degree to which a built environment supports the work required to keep it clean, hygienic and serviceable. It is a property of the building, not of the cleaning team. Decisions are designed in, not discovered later.

The Cleanability Index answers: what does the environment demand? It measures designed-in environmental supportiveness across eight domains, expressed on a 0–100 scale with a professional classification band. CI does not measure how clean a building currently is, and it is never converted into a cost figure by formula.

• Spatial Coherence and Movement Efficiency — SCME

  Whether geometry, layout and circulation allow cleaning work to flow without wasted movement.

• Surface and Material Maintainability — SMM

  How specified finishes behave in use: soiling, marking, recontamination and restorability.

• Maintenance and Servicing Accessibility — MSA

  Whether surfaces, fixtures and plant can be reached and serviced safely as routine work.

• Workflow Integration and Operational Logic — WIOL

  Whether the building's operational sequence supports a rational cleaning workflow.

• Hygiene Infrastructure Supportiveness — HIS

  Whether hygiene infrastructure — washrooms, water, hand hygiene, storage — supports required standards.

• Waste Flow and Logistics Design — WFLD

  Whether waste, consumables and equipment can move through the building efficiently.

• Safety and Ergonomic Operational Conditions — SEOC

  Whether the environment allows the work to be performed safely and without avoidable strain.

• Lifecycle Resilience and Adaptability — LRA

  Whether materials and systems sustain performance over time and adapt to changing use.

The Productivity Index answers: what is the workforce able to produce? It reflects achievable labour output and throughput given the environment, the specification and the resources provided — not an appraisal of individual effort.

The Cleaning Outcome Index answers: what result is actually achieved? It reflects observed cleanliness and hygiene outcomes. A low COI in a low-CI building is an environmental finding, not a performance failure.

The Human Dignity Index answers: what does sustaining this performance cost the people doing the work? It reflects physical strain, time pressure, exposure and dignity. Where buildings are poorly designed for cleaning, the hidden cost is frequently carried by the lowest-paid workers.

The Cleanability Cost Index estimates the avoidable operational cost imposed by a building's cleanability characteristics. It separates:

• Baseline Operational Cost — the reasonable cost of cleaning and sustaining the building if environmental conditions were efficient.
• Cleanability Premium — the additional avoidable cost created by design-related operational friction.
• Total Modelled Operational Cost — baseline plus premium.

The full calculation, the sector cleanability premium baselines and the rules used to judge a building against its sector are published separately in the CCI methodology.

The premium is structured around six cost components:

• Labour Drag

  Additional labour time caused by difficult environmental conditions.

  Awkward geometry · Excessive detail · Difficult surfaces · Manual-only cleaning · Slower task completion

• Movement Drag

  Additional travel and non-productive movement caused by poor layout.

  Distant janitorial stores · Poor waste routes · Poor vertical circulation · Long replenishment routes

• Rework / Frequency Premium

  Cost caused by repeated cleaning or unnecessarily high cleaning frequency.

  Surfaces that show marks · Rapid recontamination · Persistent staining · Inaccessible edges

• Access Premium

  Additional cost caused by difficult or specialist access.

  MEWP requirement · Rope access · High-level work · Specialist contractors · Dismantling for routine cleaning

• Resource Premium

  Additional operational resource consumption attributable to poor cleanability.

  Additional chemical · Additional water · Consumables · Machine usage · Energy · Equipment wear

• Lifecycle Premium

  Long-term cost consequences of cleanability-related wear and intervention.

  Premature material replacement · Accelerated wear · Restorative cleaning · Avoidable refurbishment

• It is not the total cost of cleaning a building.
• It is not derived from CI by an arbitrary conversion factor.
• It is not actual expenditure unless every input is marked as verified.
• It does not claim regulatory approval or predictive certainty.

Embedded Friction is the resistance a building creates against the work needed to sustain it. It is designed in, persistent, and transferred to operational teams — often described as Operational Burden Transfer, with a Management Premium where supervision must compensate for the environment.

Operational Drag is the accumulated inefficiency generated by Embedded Friction across labour, movement, maintenance, workflow and operational systems over time — avoidable labour hours, excess walking distance, rework hours, specialist access hours, schedule loss, fatigue exposure and backlog risk. Drag indicators are only calculated where user inputs or explicit assumptions exist.

Regulatory Friction is kept separate from design-generated friction because it is externally imposed.

The Cleanability Ceiling is the highest outcome a building can realistically sustain given its designed conditions. Above the ceiling, additional labour produces diminishing returns — the constraint is the environment, not the effort.

Figures are labelled Estimated, Modelled, Indicative, Observed or Verified according to their inputs. An estimated model is never presented as precise factual expenditure.

Quick Assessment gives a rapid indicative view for walkarounds, inspections and triage. Professional Assessment scores the eight domains in diagnostic detail with evidence, observations, assumptions and cost implications. Outputs are published either as a Strategic CI Dashboard for executive decision-making or a Diagnostic CI Worksheet for FM professionals, consultants and assessors.

The Professional Assessment scores 37 sub-indicators, each rated 1–5 against defined anchors and weighted within its domain. A domain score is the weighted mean of the sub-indicators actually assessed; the composite CI is the weighted mean of the domains actually assessed. Sub-indicators marked "not assessed" are excluded rather than assumed, and coverage plus evidence sourcing set the confidence rating printed against every figure. Domain weightings within the composite are: SCME 15%, SMM 18%, MSA 14%, WIOL 12%, HIS 13%, WFLD 10%, SEOC 10%, LRA 8%.

Conditions scoring 1 or 2 are reported individually as critical findings, because a single severe condition caps achievable outcomes and must not be averaged away by stronger scores elsewhere.

• Domain weightings are professional judgements, not empirically fixed constants.
• Cost components depend on the quality of the operational data supplied.
• Benchmark values are documented assumptions, not sector-certified rates.
• Lifecycle exposure uses stated escalation assumptions and is not a forecast.
• Empirical validation of the relationship between CI and measured labour is incomplete.

CleanabilityIQ is an original professional methodology developed from FM operational practice, hygiene engineering principles and design-assurance review. Validation is ongoing: observed assessments, operational records and verified cost inputs are progressively incorporated. Where validation is incomplete, the application says so at the point of use.

• v1.0 (2026) — eight-domain CI framework, Environmental Intelligence architecture (CI, PI, COI and HDI reported separately), Cleanability Cost Index with six cost components, data confidence levels, critical risk flags and Cleanability Value at Risk.