Ask Me Anything w/ Shoe Inn Shoe Covers Wed Jan 10 @11am MST

We’re hosting an Ask Me Anything event on Wednesday Jan 10th, 2018 at 11 am MST with @JFoster from Shoe Inn Shoe Covers to answer all your clean-room and contaminant questions and to provide you with insights on protocols and sterile conditions.

Click here to add the event to your Google Calendar or download and open this attachment to add to Outlook and other calendar programs. AMA w Jeffrey Foster from Shoe Inn Shoe Covers.ics (38.7 KB)

For over nine years, Shoe Inn’s industry leading automatic shoe cover dispensers and removers have been making putting shoe covers on and taking them off faster, easier, safer and cleaner. They increase worker safety, help prevent contamination, and increase efficiency and productivity. Shoe Inn’s ergonomically-friendly dispensers, which help companies save time and money by eliminating time wasted when manually applying regular shoe covers, are used by hundreds of companies spanning small businesses to Fortune 500 companies world wide in industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to food manufacturing and processing, biotechnology to energy, aerospace to medical devices, and everything in between.

Jeff Foster has been the Global Product Manager for Shoe Inn since he helped start the company in 2008. Prior to that, he worked in the land use and environmental planning industry. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Environmental Studies. He is married, has three children, and is passionate about cycling and cooking.

Start posting questions now to get the conversation going!

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Hi everyone, let’s get your questions rolling! @jfoster is here to answer your questions!

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It’s Jeff and I’m ready for your questions. Fire away!

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I’ll start us off!

What would you say is one of the biggest misunderstandings about shoe covers?

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A lot of people are only familiar with the type of shoe covers they see in hospitals and on TV (think shows like ER or other shows that have hospital settings); those are standard “fabric” or “paper” shoe covers. There are actually several other types of shoe covers with different characteristics for different purposes/settings/environments.

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What other kinds are there? (for our readers :slight_smile: )

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They range from plastic (waterproof, low-cost but slippery) to the regular fabric I mentioned to fabric shoe covers that are coated with plastic layers that make them non-slip, waterproof, heavy-duty, etc.

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Can you share any whitepapers or data you’ve gathered?

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Hey Jeff! Thanks for the AMA! In my experience running a multiple-employee facility, one of the biggest challenges was enforcing scrub-in S.O.P.s. One problem I had when establishing standard operating procedures was getting staff to scrub-in and cover their shoes. It got to the point where we started to require street shoes be ditched at the point of entry and in-house shoes be worn while in the facility (in our case, Crocs). Why might a facility manager or owner choose your product over a simple shoe change as S.O.P.?

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Can you share any whitepapers or data you’ve gathered?

There is not a ton of literature out there specifically addressing shoe covers, at least not that we’ve found. Most of what you see deals with PPE (personal protective equipment) in general and is often focused on medical/laboratory/cleanroom settings.

Here is one paper we have on our website in the Resources section: Disposable vs. Reusable Surgical Gowns | Shoe Inn.

I have some others that were recently sent to me that are not on our website yet; I’ll go through those and post them here later.

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Have you had any interesting clients?

aaaaaand

Are there any other products that synergize well with shoe covers?

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Hey Jeff! Thanks for the AMA! In my experience running a multiple-employee facility, one of the biggest challenges was enforcing scrub-in S.O.P.s. One problem I had when establishing standard operating procedures was getting staff to scrub-in and cover their shoes. It got to the point where we started to require street shoes be ditched at the point of entry and in-house shoes be worn while in the facility (in our case, Crocs). Why might a facility manager or owner choose your product over a simple shoe change as S.O.P.?

Excellent question, @Growernick, thank you for asking. As you point out, one of the alternatives to shoe covers is wearing facility/dedicated shoes, which I like better than some of the others (like chemical baths or relying only on sticky mats). If a facility is using or wants to use shoe covers, our automatic dispensers dramatically increase employee compliance, thereby eliminating that problem. The issue with manually applied shoe covers is that people don’t like (oftentimes, that is putting it mildly) having to sit down, bend over, balance on one leg, etc. for a variety of reasons (and oftentimes the opening on those shoe covers tear so the person has to go get a replacement). Our system eliminates all of those issues and improves safety, so employees/visitors very much appreciate being able to use the dispensers.

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I can definitely see the value of your system. An added benefit would be the dramatic reduction of transmission of pests, pathogens bacteria, etc. across a production facility. Furthermore, one would better be able to target and isolate a problem area within the facility in the event an outbreak occurs. Very cool invention indeed!

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Hey! Thanks for taking the time to do this:

Could you share what you view as a satisfactory Standard Operating Procedure for scrubbing in/out of a grow in your experience?

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Do you offer a NON-SLIP waterproof shoe cover? I’ve been in facilities where shoe covers are essentially ice skates and I’d like a go-to product to recommend.

Thanks again!

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Have you had any interesting clients?

aaaaaand

Are there any other products that synergize well with shoe covers?

Interesting clients? Wow, where to go with that question. We have a New York socialite that must require people that come into her house to use shoe covers from our dispensers (she’s been buying for several years, so I don’t think it is just for contractors/service people but who knows). The Walt Disney World hotels use our system in their laundry facility, which I think is pretty cool. Several vape manufacturing companies have our dispensers. I know there are others, let me think about that and I’ll probably come up with some more I can mention.

Sticky/tacky mats can synergize well with shoe covers; many facilities have those mats at entrances to gowning rooms and then have people put shoe covers on in the gowning room before going into the laboratory, manufacturing area, etc.

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Can you show us a picture or video of the dispensers you use in action? How is it easier than the process described of manually putting them on? I’ve had to scrub up on a few contract jobs in the past (replacing workstations for a pharmaceutical manufacturer,) depending on how often you leave/enter certain areas can definitely bring about feelings of “how necessary is this” when it starts becoming a chore.

I’ve got pretty big feet too and I like wearing boots, I am KING when it comes to shredding foot covers (even stretching them over.) What simplifies this with your process?

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I can definitely see the value of your system. An added benefit would be the dramatic reduction of transmission of pests, pathogens bacteria, etc. across a production facility. Furthermore, one would better be able to target and isolate a problem area within the facility in the event an outbreak occurs. Very cool invention indeed!

Good points, thank you much.

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Could you share what you view as a satisfactory Standard Operating Procedure for scrubbing in/out of a grow in your experience?

And

Do you offer a NON-SLIP waterproof shoe cover? I’ve been in facilities where shoe covers are essentially ice skates and I’d like a go-to product to recommend.

@casey, we are just starting to work with your industry (MJBizCon in Las Vegas in November was our first foray), so I don’t have specific experience with SOPs for scrubbing in/out of a grow…YET. But I want to learn!

As far as non-slip shoe covers go, you’re absolutely right about ice skates (that is how I sometimes describe plastic shoe covers). Thankfully we have some options; the best one, our Super shoe cover (Anti-Slip Shoe Covers | Disposable No-Slip Shoe Covers), has some of the best traction we’ve seen on shoe covers over the years. In fact, it is this slip-resistance that primarily makes it our most popular shoe cover by a country mile. We also carry it in a manual application format (Slip-Resistant Shoe Covers | Durable Shoe Covers - 80 Pack), including smaller sizes.

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One question that occurred to me… Can shoe covers have pesticidal activity? Should they?

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Can you show us a picture or video of the dispensers you use in action? How is it easier than the process described of manually putting them on? I’ve had to scrub up on a few contract jobs in the past (replacing workstations for a pharmaceutical manufacturer,) depending on how often you leave/enter certain areas can definitely bring about feelings of “how necessary is this” when it starts becoming a chore.

I’ve got pretty big feet too and I like wearing boots, I am KING when it comes to shredding foot covers (even stretching them over.) What simplifies this with your process?

@Jordan, we have a bunch of informational and entertaining videos on our website at Shoe Cover Machine Videos | Shoe Inn; take your pick! Jammin’ was put together specifically for MJBizCon and has been a hit. Let me know your favorite please.

Basically, using our dispensers is faster (at least 4x faster than manual application), easier, safer and cleaner. Since you’ve had to put them on manually and have come to think of it as being a chore (join the club huh?), our dispensers would rock your world. Walk up, boom boom, off you go.

As far as sizing, the shoe covers will go up to about a size 15 or 16, so they will cover most people out there. Many “universal” or “XL” shoe covers out there just don’t pass muster on this issue but ours usually do, so that is another benefit.

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