Study of the Efficient Use of Water in Bathing and Grooming Services

Abstract: Intelligent water management in production processes aims to quantify and locate the water footprint in the development of activities, in order to implement strategies to reduce water waste and make more efficient use of this resource in a sustainable manner. The companies dedicated to the Pet Shop branch can be considered as consumers of the water resource through most of the processes that it performs, plausible for its optimization object of study in this work. In this case study, the use of water is distributed in the sectors of bathing and grooming, cleaning, in addition to consumption related to the personal hygiene of employees. The data were obtained in a company located in Piracicaba - SP, Brazil, collected in a period of 365 days, through observations of the average monthly expenditure in m³, and the number of animals attended per day. In this way, a Water Consumption Indicator for Pet Shop (WCIPS) measured in (L pet ^-1 day ^-1) was calculated in order to relate the volume of water billed to the number of animals assisted. Based on the results obtained, strategies were formulated to reduce water losses and make efficient use of water resources in this project.

Key words: pet shop; water footprint; water conservation; water consumption indicator; WCIPS

JEL code: Q0