Disclosure
MUMTAZ cleans warehouses in Dubai, so we are not a neutral source and this is not a ranked list of competitors. It is the criteria we would use to appoint a contractor for our own facility. Apply them to us too.
1. Can they work while you are running?
No logistics operator can hand over an empty building for a week. If a contractor's plan assumes an empty shed, it is not a plan.
What you want to hear is aisle rotation with zones released back to operations as they finish, night and weekend working, and a programme built around your inbound and outbound peaks and your stock-take and shutdown windows. Ask how they have handled a live site of your size before.
2. Do they know what your floor is?
Warehouse floors are power-floated concrete, epoxy coating, sealed screed or cold-store tile, and they do not behave the same. The wrong pad or brush grade on a coated floor can cost far more to reinstate than the clean did.
A contractor who does not ask about the floor type at survey, or who quotes a rate per square metre without seeing it, is telling you how the job will go.
3. Working at height, honestly
High-level racking, bracing, cable trays, sprinkler pipework and roof steel is where most of the dust actually is — and it is a contamination route in food and pharmaceutical facilities and a fire-load question everywhere else.
Ask how they access it: scissor lift, order picker, or rope access, and how the drop zone is segregated from MHE and personnel. Ask for the method statement and risk assessment before mobilisation, because that is what goes into your permit-to-work system.
4. Free zone reality
JAFZA, DIP, Al Quoz, the Sharjah Industrial Areas and Mussafah each have their own gate pass, induction and permit expectations. The most common wasted mobilisation in this sector is a crew arriving at a gate it cannot pass.
A contractor who raises this before you do has done it before.
5. Cold storage competence
Cold stores cannot be cleaned like ambient warehouses. Chemistry has to work at low temperature and water use has to be controlled, because standing water freezes and becomes a slip and equipment hazard. Warming a chamber to make cleaning comfortable puts your stock at risk.
Ask specifically about the door line, evaporators and drip trays, and the floor-to-wall junction. Those are where the problems actually are.
6. The question most operators forget
How does your cleaning contractor interact with your pest contractor?
Most facilities buy the two separately, and it works until an auditor asks. Then the cleaning contractor points at the pest contractor about rodent evidence behind the racking, the pest contractor points at the cleaner about the spilled product feeding it, and you are holding two sets of paperwork that do not reference each other.
The two are the same problem from different angles: residue and spillage feed populations, and pest activity is evidence about whether your cleaning cycle is right. Reading them together requires a shared site plan and shared numbering.
This is the reason we hold both scopes — see [warehouse cleaning and pest control AMC](/services/cleaning-crew/warehouse-pest-control-amc). If you prefer two suppliers, at least make them work from the same site plan.
7. What you get on completion
A photo report and a marked-up plan showing which bays were cleaned on which date, so the next cycle can be planned and an auditor can see a programme rather than a one-off.
Who else does this work in Dubai
The Dubai market for warehouse and industrial cleaning is fragmented, with a large number of small operators alongside a few facility management groups. Rather than characterise firms we have no direct knowledge of, we would suggest shortlisting on the seven criteria above and asking each to walk your building before quoting.
Our own answers are on the [warehouse and industrial cleaning](/services/cleaning-crew/warehouse-industrial-cleaning) page.