Survey: Boosting Productivity Seen as Top Laundry Priority for 2012

CHICAGO — For January’s AmericanLaundryNews.com Wire survey, respondents had the opportunity to look back at 2011 plus examine their priorities for 2012.

Increasing productivity is the top laundry priority for 36.4% of respondents, while equal shares of 27.3% are intent on building on quality staff or marketing their service to attract more business.

The remainder—also 27.3%—has “other” top priorities, including planning and building a new laundry, and improving linen quality.

None of the respondents see adding or replacing equipment, creating greater energy savings, or improving distribution or route management as being their top priority.

Respondents are confident they will accomplish their chief task. Roughly 36% say they will, without a doubt, and the remaining 63.6% say there is a good chance.

Approximately 27% accomplished all of their 2011 goals, and 54.5% accomplished some of them. The remaining 18.2% didn’t set goals for last year.

Respondents had the opportunity to share the “best” and “worst” things that happened to their operations in 2011.

Some of the “best”:

• “Set up soap dispensing systems for satellite washer on hospital units, saving (thousands of) dollars compared to individual boxes of soap.”
• “(We were) 3,600 room nights over last year.”
• “We added (more) dryers, allowing equipment to keep up with production workers.”

And some of the “worst”:

• “Half of staff retired.”
• “Several employee accidents.”
• “Unexpected cost increases.”
• “Bought the wrong lift gate on our delivery truck.”

While the Wire survey presents a snapshot of readers’ viewpoints at a particular moment, it should not be considered scientific.

Subscribers to Wire e-mails—distributed twice weekly—are invited to take a brief industry survey anonymously online each month. All managers and administrators of institutional/OPL, cooperative, commercial and industrial laundries are encouraged to participate, as a greater number of responses will help to better define operator opinions and industry trends.

To sign up for the Wire, click the “Subscriptions” button at the top right-hand corner of this page and follow the instructions.