[Creating a Culture of Success] Cultivating Creative Thinkers

If you were to describe your commercial rodent management program in 25 words or less, what would you say? Perhaps something like: “We inspect the facility; place traps according to a set standard; recommend structural repairs; then check, document and communicate trap activity each month.”

With minor variations as to frequency, terminology or noting electronic data collection, these 23 words describe standard industry rodent management programs; in fact, virtually the same description has been applicable for decades. And, according to Kim Kemp, manager of food safety for Nestle Purina Petcare, and a team of scientists and industry experts who have spent the last several years working with Wal-Mart on sustainability, it is an area that the pest management industry needs to look at changing — or, they warn, its customers will do it for them.

“It is so inadequate for large buildings to take an age-old program that’s been handed down like tribal folklore,” Kemp said. “They need consultants. They need inspectors. They don’t need trap checkers...the client can check the traps.”

Kemp has provided food safety consultation to many of the distributors of Purina products. Although his work with Wal-Mart was originally designed to increase the environmental friendliness of its pest program, with a goal to reduce both insecticide and rodenticide use, continued work in the program has brought some unexpected results — and revelations.

One part of the program was an assessment of the rodent management programs performed for Wal-Mart. To determine the efficacy of standard industry programs and determine if rodenticide use could be reduced, Kemp worked with Purdue University to conduct a 2½-year field study which assessed the rodent programs in place at the retailer’s warehouses.

While the study did find that the program could be more “green” (i.e., rodenticide reduced), a more surprising finding was that 60 percent of the traps used in its current rodent management programs are unnecessary. In fact, many of the bait stations were more likely to catch non-target animals than rodents. “We were finding traps which were catching voles, shrews, snakes and birds,” Kemp said.

Too often, traps are placed on a set formula, with the thinking of “the more the better,” he said. When in fact, the team’s work found that snap traps in the bait stations are as effective as rodenticide. “Bait is a verb,” Kemp said. “You don’t even have to have (rodenticide) in there.”

UNNECESSARY TIME ALLOCATION. “Sixty percent of the mechanical traps have never caught a mouse and will never catch a mouse,” Kemp said. And placing so many traps provides a disservice not only for the account but for the technician, who has to spend all his time checking traps. The placement, he said, “has married the technician to the wall.”

“We don’t need all the equipment that’s out there, we don’t need to ring the buildings in rodenticide. It’s not necessary or effective,” Kemp said. One issue with ringing a building in traps is that the study found that it is not the main way that rodents come into buildings. “They are not coming in from the field, they’re being shipped in,” Kemp said. And even more disturbing is that it is not just with food supplies, as may be expected. As part of the Purdue study, a distribution center was selected in four areas around the United States (Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest), Kemp said. Every time a load of anything was received, the delivery was checked for rodent evidence. With an average of 400 deliveries per day at each center, the results were not what one would expect. Rather, he said, 95 percent of the shipments in which rodent evidence was found were in non-food shipments. “That’s not what I was taught.”

This becomes a further issue when the rodent life cycle is taken into consideration. In its natural environment a mouse will live for about four months, Kemp said. Inside a climate-controlled facility, with food, water and no predators, its average life cycle increases to 18 months — during which time it retains all its reproductive abilities. “If your only pest management program is to ring the building with traps, you are really missing a critical control point,” he said.

The essence of the problem, Kemp said, is that this mindless rodent management is not good for customers or the industry, but because “number of traps” has become the basis for pricing as well as industry standards, it is a mentality that is difficult to change.

COMING OFF THE WALL. “We need to eliminate the extra equipment and create a playing field where the technician can come off the wall,” Kemp said. And he knows what he’s talking about. “I checked traps for years,” he said. “I’ve gone through that mindless exercise.”

Stephen Kells, assistant professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota, also has worked in the pest control industry, at which time, he said, he tried to push for greater inspection and exclusion service, which he continues to advocate today along with trace-back programs for incoming goods to determine the source of pest problems. But now, as then, it seems to always come down to pricing.

“There’s no value being linked to trace-backs or inspections,” Kells said. So when pest control companies determine pricing, they do it based on number of traps. “That’s the wrong way to go, but right now it’s the only way a pest control company can ultimately evaluate the value of a contract.” Even if inspections were priced in at the beginning of the contract proposal, he said, aggressive pricing negotiations usually result in inspection time being eliminated.

But the industry may not continue to have this choice as customers are increasingly recognizing that pest control is not a matter of how fast the technician can check the trap line, Kells said. “It’s a road that if the pest control industry doesn’t want to be dictated by the customer, it will need to start training on it. There are opportunities arising to begin training techs on how to add inspections into their services as a billable service.”

Kells and Kemp are not the only ones who are advocating changes in rodent management programs. Three years ago, industry rodent expert Bobby Corrigan proposed such changes in a three-part PCT series:

“As discussed in Parts I and II of this series in PCT magazine (August and October 2005), various large-scale food-handling establishments employ up to hundreds of exterior bait stations within a ‘three lines of defense’ model to protect their establishments against potentially invading rodents. But over the past few years, some clients have been inquiring as to whether or not this model is appropriate for all exterior environments, considering there are large-scale variations in rodent species, rodent pressures, non-target animals, and a range of mammal and bird predators that feed on rodents killed by exterior baits.

“Additionally, the cost-benefit aspects of these programs are being considered. It’s a fair argument, for example, that if a large warehouse utilizing 150 exterior bait stations receives activity on roughly the same 40 stations each month, then are not the remaining 110 stations and all the time and materials to service them essentially overkill and a potential waste of resources? When calculated over the course of a year, the monies saved not servicing these stations are indeed significant, especially if this warehouse is located in an area containing low natural rodent pressure.” (PCT, November 2005)

CHANGING THE GAME. Corrigan continues this advocacy today, explaining that service should not be based on a set number of stations at set intervals. “There can’t be a standard,” Corrigan said. “We’re dealing with live animals”; animals whose behaviors and habits can vary even from the north to south sides of the same city. In addition, Corrigan said, there is a fundamental flaw in the industry’s calculation of bait station placement as a basis of rodent programs. The original guidance to place stations a standard number of feet apart, Corrigan explained, was set by USDA for grain silos, with the spacing based on a rat’s standard travel distance. From that, Corrigan said, “We ended up with a model that no one ever challenged and we’ve been stuck with it ever since.”

Kells agrees that the model is outdated. “Right now everything is based on devices,” he said. Even rodent inspection generally means checking traps for activity. “Pest control companies need to be doing inspection beyond the stations.”

EVOLVING STANDARDS. Even those who set the standards are advocating change due to the changing world. While written standards for facilities such as food-processing plants and warehouses continue to be based primarily on number and distance of rodent traps, it is a standard that remains in place as much by default as by intention.

While rodent programs historically have been designed along facility perimeters, “you have to rethink that standard model for rodent control,” said Bill Pursley, vice president of Food Safety Education and International Development for AIB International, one of the primary auditing and standard-setting agencies for food-processing and warehouse facilities. Current AIB guidelines are based on number and location of traps, with additional components for pest activity and facility inspection.

But, Pursley added, “The changing infrastructure of the food industry is requiring a change.” Manufacturers, distributors and retailers now are building “huge mega-structures” for which a standard perimeter program is no longer enough. The continuing focus on sustainability and customer’s desire to eliminate as much bait as possible is also driving the change, he said.

It is a change that will require much from pest management companies, he noted. Not only will the industry need to move beyond trap checking, but the uniqueness of each facility requires customized programs based on the specific characteristics such as facility processes and practices, design, geographic location and environment. “It requires a lot more training, a lot more knowledge,” Pursley said. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all program anymore.”

“I think (the standards) need to change, but at the same time, we need to see a response from the pest control industry to design pest control policies for plants based on science and history,” Pursley said. “Without that, you end up with boilerplate guidelines.” If a pest control company were to propose or implement a program for a plant that was based on science and history of the facility, rather than number and location of stations, it would certainly be reviewed for efficacy and considered as an alternative to the standard guidelines, Pursley said.

With the issuance of the Pest Management Standards for Food Plants in 2007 and updated in 2008, NPMA Vice President of Technical Services Greg Baumann sees the industry as evolving toward programs based on that which Pursley is advocating. “In our standards, we have developed a matrix based on potential and history,” Baumann said. There is still a significant focus on trap placement, but the standards do start down the road of technician decision making. And, he said, “at this point, that’s what the third-party auditors require because it is quantifiable.”

It is just this quantifiable nature of standards that makes the evolution difficult. Pest program points can make the difference between acceptable and unacceptable on an audit, so plants will require that their pest management provider follow the set standards that are being measured. “Everything auditors do must be quantifiable,” Baumann said. “In order to have consistency, you have to have a measurable program.”

By incorporating science and decision-making into a matrix for trap placement, the NPMA standards — which have been widely accepted by the pest management industry, the food industry and the auditing groups — attempt to integrate judgment with quantifiability. “For the first time, we’re actually putting some judgment into spacing the traps,” Baumann said.

“We would like to see it get more scientific,” Baumann said, adding that he does see programs continuing to evolve. “It’s the first time that we’ve said it — to evaluate the account and make a decision based on your observations,” he said. “This really is the very essence of IPM as well.”

Once a consultative, inspection-based program is put into place, it is critical that such services continue and that they don’t regress to only checking traps. If a technician is providing rodent management service at an account, and he has not looked at rodent penetration or assessed conducive conditions, then he has not really provided the service, Corrigan said. “If we’re going to call ourselves ‘pest management professionals,’ then we have to provide a professional service.”

DATA AND TRAINING. As self-proclaimed “guardians of the industry,” we should be more progressive in that area, Corrigan said. “It’s ironic that Wal-Mart is changing, but the science has been brought to Wal-Mart by us.” However, he added, “I don’t think that anyone should be criticizing the industry. It’s like criticizing students for not writing a good essay, but they haven’t been given a grammar class.”

In addition, he said, “there is no data yet, so that everyone can say, ‘Can I take this to the bank?’” But with the data from the four-year study currently being compiled into a scientific paper, that science is forthcoming, he said. Then it will be a matter of developing templates and training and empowering technicians to analyze situations and develop effective solutions. “You can have a generic template, but there’s no way you can do pest management in one generic form,” Corrigan said. “We have to do a better job of training the technicians. We can take you [the technician] 70 percent of the way, but when you get on the job you have to do the other 30 percent.”

In some ways the evolvement of the technician responsibilities is no different than when IPM was first introduced, Baumann said. Before that, most technicians were expected to treat baseboards and move on. But quality standards of clients, then as now, impel change. “Having corporate standards that demand technicians do more than run traps is workable. There’s a history of it,” he said.

To move the industry to this higher degree of professionalism, however, a shift in thinking and training needs to take place — by and for managers, technicians and customers. That professional service means being a consultant and helping customers build a culture of food safety from within. If he were approaching a large retailer as a PCO, Kemp said, he would explain his role as an inspector and consultant, asking the facility about its critical control points, and telling them, “I will help you manage that program.”

Managing “that” program means working with the facility’s employees to form a food-protection committee and involving staff from all departments. For example, Kemp said, the research he’s been working on shows that mice are coming in on loads — but who is training the receivers to watch for signs and take action? It is a small percentage of rodents coming in from the exterior, but exclusion is still critical — who is explaining the rudiments of structural integrity to maintenance personnel? No matter how they get in, rodents will thrive in unsanitary environments — who is training employees on Sanitation 101?

These are key areas in which the pest control industry could provide value — training employees, walking the facility with personnel, developing posters on inspection, pest identification and evidence. In addition, by taking on these aspects of consulting and training, the pest management professional will gain knowledge and experience himself that will add value in successive accounts.

The pest management professional also can be of value in helping the customer establish a program to support inspections of incoming pests. Such a program would involve inspection of incoming loads and warehoused items and tracking of the pest to determine not only the shipment on which it came in, but all the way back to the source of the pest, Kells said. This warrants the expertise of a pest management professional because “these animals are very cryptic,” he said. “They’re prone to hide. They’re prone to move around and not be seen.”

Being a consultant to a customer often can mean being the one to ask the questions, Kells said. “The best thing to do in pest management is to say ‘What happens if?’” Then start developing a solution for that possibility — setting up a protocol and training technicians on it. Product manufacturers are doing their part to add value to the quality of service at commercial facilities by developing sophisticated bait stations that are both highly effective and less time consuming to inspect, while training service personnel in their effective use. (See the December issue of PCT for additional coverage of this topic.)

COMING CHANGE. If the industry doesn’t step up to make changes itself, the experts agreed, it will be driven to that from the outside — similar to the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in schools, which, though now standard, did not start from within but was driven by the schools themselves. “Outside our own industry, we’re having clients that are going to change our industry,” Kemp said.

Not only is this already starting to happen with some major retailers that are seeking more in-depth, consultation-based services or pulling their programs in-house, but the entire structure is shifting, so that it is these retailers, the major customers, who are driving the industry. And with the ever-increasing emphasis on traceability of the supply chain, the guidelines of the retailers will very likely become mandates for their suppliers, particularly those who are implementing the approach as a part of their environmental programs. “Pretty soon a light bulb will go on (that) you can only be as green as your vendors,” Kemp said.

In addition, Kells said, customers are becoming more sensitive about pests and less willing to accept any presence or the “typical” cyclical nature of rodent activity. This is particularly true in today’s economy, in which it is catastrophic for a chain to have stores be forced to shut down even temporarily. In the past, the store would have simply switched vendors, but they’re learning that although the problem then goes away, it generally is temporary because the replacement pest control company is following the same program as its predecessor.

As a result, less emphasis gradually is being placed on the cost of a pest control contract and more on early detection and response. It is an area the industry will need to address — and learn how to price.

NEW PRICING STRUCTURE. “It’s all based on dollars,” Kemp said. As a general standard, pest management companies price rodent programs on the number of bait stations; then their directions to technicians are to go into an account, check the traps, document the service and any rodent activity, then move on to the next account. “The whole industry is predicated on time,” he said.

To be fair, it can be customers themselves who denigrate the role of the technician by focusing on price and trying to get the cheapest service. As a pest management professional who declined to be identified explained, “If we reduce the number of traps, our customers will expect to pay less. We do include inspection and sanitary and structural recommendations in our programs, but it is very difficult to get customers to understand the dollar value of this service.”

On the other hand, the pest management industry needs to begin to take steps to help itself over of the pricing barriers to which customers have become accustomed, Baumann said. “We have to get away from the idea of pricing a job based on numbers of units.” If rodent equipment is worked into pricing at all, it should be factored as only one component of a program — $X base price + $X per trap, he said, in which labor of monitoring and inspection are factored for the base. And, Baumann added, the equation should be an internal assessment, not given to customers.

Pest management professionals also have to realize that a low price can also have negative effects. Prior to joining the pest management industry, Baumann was a food plant quality assurance manager who purchased pest control services. The criteria he used in choosing a provider were provisions for thorough inspection and “whatever it was going to take to set it up so I didn’t have to worry about it. QA managers want to put their faith in the service provider.” In fact, he nixed one provider because his proposal was too low, telling him that there would be no way he would be able to do a thorough job for the low price being quoted. “It’s not just about price,” Baumann said. “It’s about quality.”

Other industry arguments, beyond pricing, have been that the traps act as monitoring devices and alert the pest management professional to potential issues to help prevent new infestations, which is accurate. In addition, many companies today provide handheld electronic devices with which they are able to verify their work and track activity in a facility. While this can be a beneficial tool, it still focuses on the rodent stations and does not provide for variation from routine.

Kells is working with time studies to address this very issue. If a company is to reduce the number of traps in a facility, “how can we restructure the other amount of time to do inspections?” Rather than including inspections only in the sales pitch, but not as a part of the contract (which is too often done today), the contract should be written to include “X” traps plus “X” hours of inspection, he said. Some companies have attempted to offer such contracts in the past without much success, but this is changing, Kells said. “You’re going to see more customers requesting this now.”

If, instead of allowing potentially unacceptable mandates to be pushed from outside, the industry chooses to set the rules of the game itself, Kemp said he believes it will take someone from within to step up to the plate, take the first major step and challenge the system and the industry. “We need some kind of champion,” Kemp said. “Someone to buck the industry.”

It won’t be an easy change, and it will require effort from, training of, and communication with all players. “We are advocating a complete industry shift,” Corrigan said. “If we don’t change, we’re in trouble.”

The author is based in Minneapolis, and is a frequent contributor to PCT magazine.