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Man creates Duop mopping system to reduce cleaning injuries
18th of November 2015
Dan Koval found inspiration for his latest entrepreneurial venture while sitting in a hotel room, watching a cleaning attendant struggle with back pain.
"I could tell the woman's back was hurting from the way she was moving," Koval told BusinessWest in the US. "She told me she had just returned to work after taking nine months off for a back injury incurred on the job," he said.
"When I pushed, she told me the hotel group had paid $40,000 for her surgery, the insurance company had offered her more against further claims, and all of her colleagues had either been injured on the job or were out with similar work-related injuries."
Koval has spent the majority of his career in product development so arranged for a team of designers and ergonomists to visit hotels in London and the US, where they met with union representatives and discussed the incidence of job-related injuries. "We quickly found it was a global problem," he said.
"Room attendants are the coal miners of the hospitality industry. Their work is taxing and physically demanding; they have to kneel, bend, and put their wrist in positions that can cause carpal-tunnel problems, and they do this eight hours a day, five or six days a week. It can affect their knees, shoulders, wrists, and back," he explained.
"One study found that 91 per cent of room attendants experience pain at work, and 66 per cent take pain medication just to be able to go to work."
So Koval set up a new business in the US called Worksafe Technology, with its first product being a new mopping system designed to solve the problems he had witnessed.
Called Duop, the concept comes from the idea of having a ‘dual mop,' as the head of the product can be removed and used by hand, which leads to better ergonomic, hygiene and cleaning results Koval said.
The revolutionary part of the tool, he claims, is to be found at the end of the pole. It contains a ball-and-socket mechanism that can pivot 360 degrees when the ball on the head is snapped into the socket, which allows it to be used for a variety of tasks.
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