Richard Geiss Celebrates Ten Years of Industrial Laundry Services

“It’s really amazing what we’ve built here, and we’re now celebrating a decade of success in contract cleaning, a service that’s now used by over 150 customers,” says Bastian Geiss, managing partner of Richard Geiss GmbH. The idea came to him one evening at a hotel bar in the Black Forest: “A customer had closed his business and offered to sell us his degreasing system. At some point, we said, ‘Okay, we’ll buy it.’” The original plan was to set up the system at the company’s headquarters in Offingen and use it solely for internal training and testing to gain further experience in handling various solvents and stabilizers. That is, until a friend who was an entrepreneur in the metal industry heard about the installation and sent the first mesh crate to Offingen for testing. “The results were so good that he suddenly started sending us more and more components, because the parts we cleaned integrated much better into the subsequent processes than the ones they had degreased themselves,” recalls Geiss.

Launch of Contract Cleaning at Richard Geiss in 2016

From that point on, it was clear to Bastian Geiss and his team: “This could really take off.” So the company built a new facility and finally installed a Pero R5 cleaning system in May 2016. That marked the official launch of the new business division. The first customers for contract cleaning came through word of mouth, and eventually the service became a runaway success—and thus an indispensable pillar of Richard Geiss GmbH’s full-service offering, which has even been operating under its own brand—RG4Clean Parts—since 2025. “Cleaning processes in the metal industry are always a delicate matter. For many companies, it’s no longer worth it to operate their own systems. They’re grateful that we take this work off their hands,” says Geiss. This was also the case for an automotive supplier in the Allgäu region, which was experiencing problems with its existing system and, on top of that, faced a capacity bottleneck. Instead of investing in new technology, the company has been using Richard Geiss GmbH’s contract cleaning service for many years now, processing approximately three million components per year. The process is certified according to the VDA 6.3 standard. Customers benefit from Richard Geiss GmbH’s outsourcing services not only when facing capacity bottlenecks but especially when encountering quality issues in their own degreasing processes. “In industrial manufacturing, no one can afford for production to come to a standstill and for components to remain undelivered. We help our customers ensure they can guarantee their delivery capability—even if there are issues with their in-house cleaning process,” says Bastian Geiss. More and more companies are also using the contract cleaning service as a buffer, for example, during scheduled maintenance work on their own equipment.

All under one roof at RG4Chemicals

This is also included in Richard Geiss GmbH’s comprehensive service: “Our customers can choose whether we should send the cleaned components back to their facility or directly on to their customers,” says Bastian Geiss. The type of packaging can also be freely selected. Blister packaging is just as possible as delivery in standardized KLT containers. “We also tailor the logistics process precisely to our customers’ needs,” says Geiss. With this high-end contract cleaning service in its portfolio, Richard Geiss GmbH has a unique selling point throughout Europe: “We are the only provider that serves all areas: We are solvent recyclers, solvent developers, solvent suppliers, and, at the same time, users. Through our laboratory, we can also perform a full range of services, such as residual contamination analyses. This combination of process, analytics, and quality assurance is truly unique,” explains Bastian Geiss. This uniqueness now has a name: “RG4Chemicals” embodies Richard Geiss GmbH’s commitment to offering its customers everything from a single source: from distillation and product distribution to laboratory and consulting services, as well as the proper disposal of waste materials and, of course, the cleaning of components in Offingen.