Methods and system for performance assessment of cleaning operations

System for the performance assessment of cleaning operations, the system comprises at least:

• a chemical test strip having a reactive zone, the reactive zone is operable to change color as a function of a cleaning process;
• a chemical test strip receptacle forming an imaging chamber to provide uniformity in lighting and distance between the imaging device and the chemical test strip during imaging of the reactive zone;
• an imaging device capable of creating a digital image of the reactive zone of the chemical test strip after the reactive zone has been exposed to the cleaning process;
• image analyzing software adapted to count a number of black and white pixels of the digital image of the reactive zone of the chemical test strip after the reactive zone has been exposed to the cleaning process, and compare the counted number of black and white pixels to a quantitative evaluation result of the test strip prior to the cleaning process.

A computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors of a computing device to perform operations comprising:

• a) exposing at least one chemical test strip comprising a carrier and an indicator means, wherein the indicator means comprises at least in a defined surface area a color indicator, to the chemical environment of a cleaning operation;
• b) recording with an image device the data of at least one digital color image of the test strip after the cleaning operation;
• and
• c) quantitative evaluation of the digital image data,
• characterized in that the quantitative evaluation of the digital color image data in step c) at least comprises the steps c1) to c5):
• c1) color-to-greyscale image data transformation;
• c2) glare detection;
• c3) greyscale- to binary image data transformation;
• c4) image pixel-area normalization;
• and step
• c5) pixel-counting, wherein the number of black and white pixels of the test strip image data after the cleaning process are counted and the counting result is compared to the quantitative evaluation result of the test strip prior to the cleaning process.

An imaging box for use in an image capture procedure for the performance assessment of cleaning operations, comprising:

• a housing defined by a front surface and a back surface and forming an interior cavity when the housing is placed on a substantially flat surface, the front surface having a receptacle configured to receive a mobile device,
• the front surface further including at least one camera aperture configured to correspond to the position of a camera lens of the mobile device when the mobile device is received in the receptacle,
• the back surface including a test strip slot configured to receive and hold a chemical test strip comprising a carrier and an indicator means in a substantially flat position,
• the back surface further including a test strip aperture configured to correspond to the position of a chemical test strip when received into the test strip slot, such that an image of the chemical test strip may be captured by the camera of the mobile device when the chemical test strip is inserted into the test strip slot such that the indicator means is facing the interior cavity of the housing.

A system comprising:

• an imaging box for use in an image capture procedure for the performance assessment of a cleaning process, the imaging box comprising:
• a housing defined by a front surface and a back surface and forming an interior cavity when the housing is placed on a substantially flat surface, the front surface having a receptacle configured to receive a mobile device,
• the front surface further including at least one camera aperture configured to correspond to the position of a camera lens of the mobile device when the mobile device is received in the receptacle,
• the back surface including a test strip slot configured to receive and hold a chemical test strip comprising a carrier and an indicator means in a substantially flat position,
• the back surface further including a test strip aperture configured to correspond to the position of a chemical test strip when received into the test strip slot, such that an image of the chemical test strip may be captured by the camera of the mobile device when the chemical test strip is inserted into the test strip slot such that the indicator means is facing the interior cavity of the housing;
• a computing device configured to receive and evaluate the digital image of the chemical test strip and generate an assessment of the performance of the cleaning process;
• and
• a cleaning assessment application running on the mobile device configured to display the assessment of the performance of the cleaning process.