Air National Guard Centre Requires Contractors To Be CIMS-Certified

Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland is the well-known home of Air Force One as well as the preferred air transportation hub for United States senior officials, plus kings, queens and other leaders from around the globe. Andrews is also the location of the Air National Guard Readiness Centre (ANGRC) which develops, manages and directs the Air National Guard programs responsible for carrying out national-level policies set by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Air Force and the National Guard Bureau.

Given its history, importance and international visibility, it’s no surprise that Andrews Air Force Base places the utmost priority on its appearance and maintaining the highest level of cleanliness possible. Simply stated, anything less than the effective delivery of consistent, quality cleaning is unacceptable. To obtain assurance that the management of the cleaning organization hired to perform cleaning is structured to deliver such service, the ANGRC at Andrews has now mandated that its contract cleaners become certified to the new ISSA Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS).

Senior Master Sgt. Mark Gyure, who manages the ANGRC’s 200,000 sq. feet of facilities and is responsible for hiring its contract cleaners, learned about CIMS through articles in various facility-management and cleaning industry publications. He immediately recognized that CIMS was consistent with ANGRC’s existing internal requirements.

“We have standards about how we want to see a facility cleaned – dirt free, no standing water, those types of things,” Gyure said. “But we saw that this was an industry putting together a management standard of excellence based on its years of experience. We saw the value in that.”

The idea of an industry policing itself and raising its own internal bar appealed to Gyure because of ANGRC’s commitment to excellence and demand for the highest level of service. For Gyure, it’s not just a matter of having a clean facility. The way he sees it, a clean facility ties directly to the bottom line functionality of any organization.

“I tell people to imagine how they feel when they’re at a five-star restaurant and realize that it’s so spotlessly clean they could eat off the floor,” he said. “It’s a mood-elevator. You feel good in such a spotless environment. Then I tell them to imagine how they feel when they go into a run-down service station along the highway. Then I ask them which of those environments they’d rather be in on an average workday. Where would you get the most done: the five-star restaurant or the dirty, run-down gas station? That’s how important a clean facility is to productivity.”

Gyure sees CIMS certification as a way to be sure the cleaning organization he contracts with is managed in an effective manner and is dedicated to meeting his service expectations.

He also appreciates the fact that CIMS takes some of the work out of selecting a cleaning company. “CIMS certification lessens the burden on people in all industries who are hiring cleaners because it removes the risk factor from the hire,” he said. “If a company is CIMS certified, you know you’re hiring a company of excellence. You know you won’t be forced into hiring another company a few months down the road because of poor performance.”

With CIMS certification now available to all cleaning organizations, Gyure notes that the distinction will become a prerequisite to being awarded a cleaning contact.

“When we’re hiring a cleaning company, we are dedicated to go out and look at as many companies as possible to get the best fit,” he said. “If I look at 100, and 95 of them are not CIMS certified, that’s 95 bidders I can cross off my list before I go any further.”

From the perspective of one who hires contract cleaners on a regular basis, Gyure feels that the standard and certification program are long overdue. “I thank ISSA for putting this standard out there,” he said. “It was a long time in coming.”

Gyure notes that while the ANGRC does not have jurisdiction over other Guard stations around the country, they do set the standard. “We’re the headquarters,” he said. “What works here will work in other places, and we do have input into that. I predict we’ll see this standard being required in Guard facilities all over the country soon.”

CIMS is the first comprehensive management and operations standard for cleaning organizations. Administered by ISSA and the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences, CIMS is designed to help building service contractors and in-house service providers develop quality, customer-centered organizations.

The CIMS framework is built around five quality principles that have proven to be the hallmarks of well-managed, successful cleaning operation:

  •  Quality Systems
  •  Service Delivery
  •  Human Resources
  •  Health, Safety and Environmental Stewardship
  •  Management Commitment

Why should a company certify to CIMS? According to ISSA Director of CIMS Dan Wagner, “Implementation of the Standard’s elements affords an organization a tremendous opportunity to validate its management systems and processes. Professional, customer-centered cleaning organizations finally have a touchstone resource, a common rallying point around which all members of the industry can gather and work toward achieving an unprecedented level of professionalism and excellence.”

As more and more building owners, facility managers and purchasing professionals are requiring CIMS certification as part of their janitorial service contracts, cleaning organizations are encouraged to apply for certification as soon as possible. More information, including an official CIMS application, an explanation of the certification fee structure, and a copy of the self-assessment compliance checklist, is available at www.issa.com/standard or by contacting Wagner at 1-800-225-4772 or (847) 982-0800; e-mail: The CIMS Certification Guide, which helps organizations better understand what is required to comply with the Standard, is also available to provide more in-depth explanations of how to meet the Standard’s various requirements.