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FRANKFURT, Germany — With Texcare International wrapping up today, many exhibitors with U.S. ties expressed delight in this year’s event and vow to return to the World Market for Modern Textile Care in four years.

Robin Thurgood, vice president and general manager of Rennco, brought his Michigan company’s industrial laundry packaging solutions to the show and found attendees intrigued by the prospect of packaging linens automatically rather than by hand.

“This is our first foray into Europe,” Thurgood says. “I’m not sure there’s anything like us over here yet. I’m not sure they’ve gone into this style of packaging. They’re all very interested.”

Dexter Laundry exhibited at Texcare in hopes of opening up new on-premise and coin laundry markets for its washers and dryers, according to Kevin Hietpas, vice president of sales and marketing.

“Honestly, I think we’re more ready for the customers on the coin side, but we’re seeing what the OPL market is like here in Europe and elsewhere in the world, what those customers need,” Hietpas says. “I think we’re close on some counts (and) we’ve got additional product development to do in other areas.”

Dexter has used the show to establish new contacts and will follow up with many potential opportunities with a long-term view, he adds.

The largest booth in the exhibition belonged to Germany’s own Kannegiesser, and Phil Hart, executive vice president of Kannegiesser USA, says the company’s founder is devoted to exhibitions and displaying a full range of high-technology products and systems to the industry.

“It’s been a very full booth,” Hart says. “The number of visitors has been quite high. And the variety. It really is a worldwide show. One of the side benefits of this is we can introduce customers from various parts of the world and just let them talk, let them compare notes and there’s a certain synergy that goes on at that point.”

Sustainability was a buzzword for this exhibition. AquaRecycle President Jeff Lebedin found that it wasn’t water recycling that had visitors to his booth talking but rather the recycling of dryer exhaust made possible by his company’s ThermalRecycle equipment.

“There are a lot of centralized laundries in Europe, and they do a lot of tunnel washing,” says Lebedin, whose company is based in Georgia. “We just don’t see a huge market yet for recycling water, but when it gets into the dryer part of it, recycling dryer exhaust is in its infancy in our industry because very few companies know what it costs them to dry their linen.”

There were 264 exhibitors from 26 nations represented at the five-day show. The United States was third in number of companies attending behind host nation Germany and Italy.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) is sponsoring Safer Together, a May 21-22 Safety Summit intended to generate increased safety awareness within the textile services industry while providing an opportunity for practical, hands-on analysis of trends and issues.

A panel featuring some of the textile services industry’s most recognizable names will convene during the Bloomington, Minn., meeting to discuss their companies’ commitment to safe practices and the importance of establishing a top-down safety culture, TRSA says.

Participants will include Bill Evans, president/CEO of AmeriPride Services; Scott Farmer, CEO of Cintas Corp.; Karl Fillip, president/CEO of Alliance Laundry & Textile Services; and Jeff Wright, executive vice president and CFO of G&K Services.

Additionally, there will be breakout sessions to discuss executive management support, driver/fleet safety, wash aisle and lockout/tagout, injury prevention programs, and ergonomics.

Discussions will identify risks in laundry plant and service work that require improved mitigation and propose solutions.

Safety experts emphasize that while management often claims a “commitment to safety,” the real or imagined pressures of production can and often do defeat safety programs as the majority of these efforts focus on compliance and requirements, not zero-based objectives, TRSA says.

The Summit will foster novel approaches by identifying the most difficult obstacles the industry faces in eliminating injuries and illnesses and developing consensus proposals for overcoming them. Conclusions will drive TRSA programming such as best practices documentation, conference presentations, education/training, research/benchmarking and other resources.

To learn more, visit the TRSA website.

KANNEGIESSER PROMOTES HART TO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — The owner of Herbert Kannegiesser GmbH recently promoted Phil Hart to executive vice president of Kannegiesser USA.

During the company’s recent Canadian sales meeting, owner Martin Kannegiesser announced that Hart’s role in the company will expand, moving him into supervisory positions with different departments, while continuing to be responsible for the company’s daily operations.

Hart joined Kannegiesser USA in 2004 as vice president of marketing, bringing with him more than 10 years of industry and product experience.

TURN-KEY INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING HIRES BERNSTEIN AS SENIOR VP

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A veteran of the textile industry, David Bernstein recently joined Turn-Key Industrial Engineering Services as senior vice president. Bernstein’s role will be in business development, consulting, and adding new services to the firm’s lineup.

The fourth generation of his family in the textile rental industry, Bernstein brings a unique perspective and a diverse work résumé to his new position. He has more than 20 years experience, including stints as president of Consolidated Laundry Machinery Co., as director of the Uniform and Textile Services Association (UTSA), and as chief operating officer of F-MATIC.

“All of us at Turn-Key are ecstatic to be welcoming David as a member of our team,” says Chip Malboeuf, Turn-Key president. “His experience, skill set, intelligence and enthusiasm for the industry will not only enhance our current offering, but will also allow us to provide our clients with additional services to increase their revenue and improve their operations.”

In addition to his professional experience, Bernstein is two-time chair of the UTSA Plant Operations Committee, an inductee into the Plant Operations Hall of Fame, an instructor and task force member for the Production Management Institute (PMI) and Maintenance Management Institute (MMI), and a former member of the board of directors of the Western Textile Services Association (WTSA). He resides in Park City, Utah.

TINGUE, BROWN & CO. PROMOTES LAVIGNA TO PURCHASING DIRECTOR

SADDLE BROOK, N.J. — Paul LaVigna has been promoted to the role of purchasing director for the TB division of laundry industry supplier Tingue, Brown & Co. He will work out of TB’s satellite office in Clifton Park, N.Y.

LaVigna brings extensive experience to his new role, much of it gained through his years with the U.S. Army, where he was a procurement and logistics officer. More recently, he was an operations manager for a nationwide retailer. He has been in corporate operations with TB since August 2010.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, LaVigna lives in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with his wife and two children.

“I am grateful for the opportunity this new position provides,” LaVigna says, “and I look forward to working with all of Tingue, Brown’s partners in the laundry industry.”

VENUS GROUP HIRES INDUSTRY VET MCBRIDE AS SALES MANAGER

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. — Venus Group has a new Midwest regional sales manager. With more than 30 years of industry experience, Mike McBride is now responsible for the textile company’s sales and growth efforts in the Midwest.

His diverse résumé has allowed him to meet many Midwest dry cleaners and laundry owners as well as people with national textile chains. He started with Procter & Gamble as a field representative and trainer, then moved to Cleaners Hangers Co. as a sales representative. His most recent post with Cleaners Hangers was as vice president of sales and marketing.

McBride earned a degree from the University of Notre Dame, where he was also a member of the 1973 NCAA national champion football team.

G.A. BRAUN ADDS SLETTE TO FINISHING EQUIPMENT TEAM

SYRACUSE, N.Y. —The G.A. Braun Finishing Equipment Engineering Team has a new member. Matt Slette brings to the product development team a diverse experience in modeling components in 3D and developing 2D working drawings, bill of materials, and assemblies for production, Braun says.

Slette graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering technology from California Polytechnic State University. He is based at Braun’s corporate headquarters in Syracuse.

EQUIPMENT/SUPPLIES DISTRIBUTION: STEVE CLARK, LAUNDRY EQUIPMENT SERVICES INC., BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.VA.

As with any mechanical industry in the world today, technology is ever evolving and continues to push equipment to its max in terms of production and efficiency. This is no different in the laundry industry—as long as you use it properly.

Forget all the bells and whistles of additional means for energy conservation and get down to the nitty-gritty of what it takes to improve your laundry’s energy efficiency and water consumption with the equipment you already have. Something that laundry managers often forget is the amount of water in an individual cycle’s bath and the amount of that water retained in the linen at the end of the cycle.

First, do you know how many gallons are in a particular bath? If so, then do you truly need that much? Does your machine capacity and chemical makeup require such an amount of water? With advancements in technology and computer programming, every leading manufacturer of equipment is capable of customizing water consumption on a per-bath/per-cycle basis. Obviously, this cycle variation will depend on the material being laundered. Regardless, it would be wise to break down the water level and percentage of drum capacity with your chemical representative to determine if this percentage can be tweaked.

Imagine saving 1 gallon per bath/per cycle and multiply that by the number of cycles you run throughout a given day. For example, one machine removes 1 gallon of water from five baths in one cycle. At 5 gallons per load and two loads an hour, that equals 10 gallons saved per hour, or 80 gallons saved per eight-hour shift.

Beyond the amount of water going into an individual wash cycle, what about the water coming out? The water retention amount per load can destroy your laundry’s efficiency in the drying or finishing stages of the process. For every percentage point of moisture in a given material, expect additional minutes to be spent in a dryer or finisher, thus requiring more labor, gas, electricity, etc., per load.

Water retention is affected by the amount of water introduced, the extraction rate of RPMs applying the respective G-force, and the length of extraction time. Due to previously mentioned advances in technology and programming capabilities, most equipment is capable of adjusting the RPMs and the length of extraction time to limit moisture retention to a desired amount for premium linen quality and energy efficiency.

Limit your expenses and help the environment; maximize your efficiency.

COMMERCIAL LAUNDRY: TOM GILDRED, EMERALD TEXTILES, SAN DIEGO, CALIF.

Greater energy efficiency and water conservation can be achieved through planning and design using the new technology available in equipment such as continuous batch washers, presses, and dryers.

In some areas, utilities companies and commissions have special incentive programs designed to encourage businesses to be as energy efficient as possible. In working with your utility company, it is possible to precisely plan for proper equipment and energy use in order to achieve maximum savings.

Employing “reduce and reuse” principles ensures that the highest possible level of resource preservation is achieved throughout an operation. By incorporating the latest technology, equipment, processes and infrastructure, it is possible to save millions of gallons of water annually and tremendous amounts of natural gas and electricity. Some of the ways to achieve tremendous savings include:

• Utilizing energy-efficient lighting, and motion-sensor lighting where appropriate, throughout the plant and offices to reduce energy use.
• Going green with invoices, by using e-mail instead of paper to conserve ink, energy and eliminate paper waste.
• Using environmentally sustainable, lighter fabrics that not only make sense for the environment but also require less drying time.
• Utilizing gravity-enabled designs in the plant, such as an overhead rail system, that moves laundry through the facility using minimal energy to produce less risk and strain to employees.
• Installing the latest industrial washers that utilize high-tech water systems with the ability to decrease water usage by more than 75%.
• Incorporating high-pressure presses to remove the maximum amount of water from clean goods and greatly reduce drying time, resulting in lower natural gas consumption.
• Employing heat reclamation equipment, which employs energy-transfer principles to raise the incoming water temperature so that a lot less energy is needed for heating.

Through technology and streamlined processes, it is possible to achieve tremendous energy savings, which results in cost savings and reduced environmental impact. That’s good for the industry and good for the environment.

TEXTILES: TOM LANGDON, ENCOMPASS GROUP, MCDONOUGH, GA.

There are a number of relatively new textile products on the market that can help improve a laundry’s energy and water consumption. Technology developments in yarn spinning and finishing chemistry now allow synthetic fibers to have more natural fiber characteristics.

Fasciated yarn is defined by Webster’s as a form of fiber assembly consisting of a core of parallel discontinuous fibers bound into a compact bundle by surface wrapping minor proportion of the discontinuous fibers around the core to form the yarn. The most common type is MJS, or Murata Jet Spinning, named after the Japanese manufacturer that perfected this technique.

By using this process to spin all polyester or CVS (Chief Value Synthetic) fibers into yarn, products have a more “cotton-like” look and feel. Recent developments in finishing chemistry now can impart wicking and moisture management properties on fabrics once considered nonabsorbent. This market trend started several years ago with sheets and pillowcases, but now has spread into most product groups, including incontinent pads and even thermal blankets.

There are a few challenges that any laundry may have to address when considering incorporating these new products into their system. No. 1 is the difference in cost. Depending on the item, replacing an existing CVC (Chief Value Cotton) item with one that is all-poly or poly rich could be a 20-40% premium in upfront investment over the standard linen price. The second challenge is processing. Because manmade fiber products dry faster and absorb less water, they need to be processed separately to achieve their full benefits. In some cases, this may be more trouble than it is worth.

Although there is an upfront investment, adding these items to a line will more than provide payback over time. By its nature, polyester is stronger than cotton and will last longer. There is less weight loss, which helps protect revenues for those charging by the pound. Studies have shown that these poly-rich items are more resistant to staining, so there is savings to be had by reducing rewash cycles or pre-treating.

This past year was the best time ever to add more poly-rich items to your line or convert completely. The unprecedented rise in cotton prices in 2011 closed the gap, so in some cases switching was a wash (no pun intended), or the premium was slight. If you look at these items from a cost-per-use perspective, they still are a good value.

I’ll offer a few statistics. One company that I work with did some in-house testing on the processing of these new, synthetic-rich items and achieved the following results on several product categories (of course, results may vary from laundry to laundry):

Knit Sheets — Drying time was reduced 25-40% as compared to a cotton-rich item, and water retention was cut in half.

Pads — Drying time was reduced by 50% as compared to a cotton-rich item, and water retention was reduced by 20%.

Clothing Protectors — Drying time was reduced by 60% as compared to a cotton-rich item, and water retention reduced by 40%.

If laundries embrace this new technology, they will experience faster drying times and use less water. They will also have products that last longer. Saving money and time while conserving resources, now that’s a win-win.

HOTEL/MOTEL/RESORT LAUNDRY: JR NORRIS, DELTA UNIFORM AND LINEN, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

As energy prices begin to soar, and with today’s current economic uncertainty, now is an excellent time to implement energy benchmarking and waste reduction in your operation.

Conducting energy audits on a regular basis can help determine the actual condition of your equipment as well as its overall performance. These audits can show where and how energy is being wasted, and can help you identify and prioritize future energy-improvement measures.

Unfortunately, it took some time to get our entire team to recognize the benefits and contribute to reducing wasted resources. In addition to insulating hot water and steam lines and repairing leaky valves, we conducted frequent walk-and-talk meetings with maintenance and laundry managers to identify a starting point.

Since our machines are older, we decided we should determine their energy consumption first. To start the process, we had our local electricity provider complete an audit. It conducted a weeklong audit of our usage and compared peak vs. non-peak times. Through these findings, we learned which equipment was pulling the highest amperage and then made proactive decisions to determine what we could do to conserve.

After the audit was complete, we reviewed all of our older equipment that was wasting the most energy. The most energy-consuming piece of equipment turned out to be a 50-hp air compressor, and, unfortunately, we have two of them in place. In an effort to reduce this waste, we purchased a new 25-hp motor, changed the pulleys and reduced the overall amps being used.

Some may ask why we didn’t purchase a new, energy-efficient compressor. We believe in saving first and purchasing newer equipment after all other options have been exhausted.

For example, we had a 900-pound Ellis washer that had such a hard start-up and used so many amps that it continuously caused problems. We implemented today’s technology and installed a soft-start invert drive. This dramatically reduced our daily amps and allowed room on our circuit breaker to install more equipment on our two different power sources. This method of resolution has proven successful in our operation.

In addition to modifying equipment to conserve energy, we also found that by utilizing our skylights as a natural light source, we were able to reduce the number of hours a day that our overhead lights are on. With the generous amount of sunlight that we have in New Mexico, we tapped into this natural resource. The additional natural light encourages more positive production out of our employees than working under bright fluorescent lighting. To take this a step further, we are installing photocells on our fixtures to automatically reduce lighting usage.

The next energy-saving effort we will focus on is a system for reclaiming water. We have grown significantly over the last few years, and have learned that this system will be a vital contributor for cost savings and water preservation. We are in the process of researching this method to determine our future implementation efforts.

Conserving energy can be as easy as wrapping and insulating lines or identifying and repairing all leaking water and air valves. Enlisting your local energy service provider to provide audits of your current consumption can give you a better understanding of your usage and allow you to easily identify waste. Empowering your team to conserve and promote awareness of energy waste can improve the success of your efforts. Education and implementation is the best way to reduce our industry’s carbon footprint and benefit the environment, but it also can assist in reducing our collective bottom lines.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

ATLANTA — The Clean Executive Committee has selected Global Experience Specialists (GES) to serve as the official services contractor for the 2013 Clean Show in New Orleans.

Three companies submitted proposals for the June 2013 show. “GES did our show in New Orleans in 2009 and did a great job,” says John Riddle, president of Riddle & Associates, the Clean Show’s management company. “We look forward to working with them again in 2013.”

Chicago hosted the first Clean Show in 1977. United Exposition Service Co. was the official services contractor for that event and subsequent shows. GES purchased United in 1993, and the Las Vegas-based company has continued its partnership with the Clean Show for many shows since.

GES produces 3,000 exhibitions and events annually.

The Clean Show—officially titled the World Educational Congress for Laundering and Drycleaning—attracts people across all segments of the textile care industry, from single-owner, coin-operated laundry and drycleaning establishments to giant industrial and institutional laundries and textile rental companies.

TRSA is fostering continuous improvement in textile services industry operations including development of environmentally friendlier, more economical and safer techniques. TRSA speaks with one voice to the government, marketplace and media about best management practices (BMPs) for serving industrial, hospitality and healthcare markets. At this meeting you will learn what TRSA is saying and assess your company’s position in light of emerging BMPs.

Clean Green – Gauge your progress in conserving water and energy and modifying processes and work habits to improve efficiency as TRSA certifies such companies’ efforts and promotes them locally and nationally.

Workplace Safety– TRSA’s Safety & HR Committee is reaching out to the industry as it publishes BMPs. In Kansas City you can help ensure your operation fits the profile, helping to develop and publicize the safety BMP list:
- Executive Management Support
- Route/Driver Safety
- Wash Aisle and Lock-Out/Tag-Out
- Injury Prevention Programs
- Ergonomics

Westin Kansas City at Crown Center will host the event. Contact Salita Jones, 703-519-0029, ext. 108, sjones@trsa.org, for more information.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) last month hosted the first of six Executive Roundtables planned for 2012, providing members with benchmarking information designed to improve operations, performance, productivity and safety.

TRSA President Joseph Ricci says his association’s members are always looking for opportunities for innovation. “Differentiation with unique goods and services provide a niche for new market entry and the financial premiums associated with those opportunities,” he explains.

This gathering covered issues impacting the restaurant/food-and-beverage and hotel/lodging markets. A representative of Darden Restaurants—the world’s largest full-service restaurant company, including the Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse brands—took part in the roundtable discussion, promoting the exchange of information from customer to service provider.

Industry consultants from Pertl & Alexander led discussions on linen loss and replacement for hospitality and food-and-beverage (F&B) applications. Attendees were invited to tour three Walt Disney World laundries, each with a special application and purpose.

The Housekeeping Plant processes rooms linen and pool towels for the nearly 30,000 Disney World hotel guestrooms. It produces more clean linen than any other single laundry location in the world—nearly 120 million pounds annually. The 16-year-old facility operates seven tunnel washers (that are targeted for replacement) and an automated open-pocket cell. 

The emphasis on throughput production is clear, but not at the risk of sacrificing quality. Quality control is ongoing, including a station that randomly evaluates linen before shipment.

Bob Corfield, president of Laundry Design Group, appreciated the production and efficiency of the housekeeping plant, but was eager to see how Disney handled its considerable costume and uniform requirements.

After a short bus ride, the group toured the Costume Facility that processes 29,000 costumes and cast member uniforms every day. 

Curt Gray, chief administrative officer for AmeriPride Services in Minnetonka, Minn., says he felt more at home in the uniform plant environment. His goal was to better understand how a world-class organization like Walt Disney World integrates its service culture into the industrial laundry environment.

After going through the plants, Gray commented that the net result of what Disney accomplishes appears to be the sum of doing a lot of little things right.

The Costume Facility tours like a morph between a large drycleaning shop and a production industrial plant (it also processes all walk-off mats used in the theme park). Equipment includes four drycleaning machines, two wetclean washers, and an assortment of washer-extractors.

Terri Amey, Disney’s costume plant manager, attributes the production and quality to the plant’s “cast.” Average term of service among full-time employees there is 19.5 years.

Pablo Lucchesi of Crown Linen, Miami, was particularly interested in touring Disney’s Food and Beverage Plant, as F&B is a growth center for his company.

Disney’s F&B facility provides table linen for the 200 park restaurant outlets servicing 32 different color options.

F&B delivery drivers arrive at work at 2 a.m. Pickups and deliveries are made in the early-morning hours using lowboy trailers. They are equipped with ramps that eliminate lift-gate requirements, reducing delivery times and improving operator safety.

The next TRSA Executive Roundtable is scheduled for May and will involve operational and market issues specific to national textile services companies.

ROCKLEDGE, Fla. — Bill Carey has been in the laundry business his entire adult life. Six years ago, he took over the helm at Space Coast Hospital Services, a not-for-profit hospital cooperative laundry.

“Our mission is to help our hospitals reduce their cost of linen services,” Carey says. “If we don’t help them, somebody else will. We are operating in an extremely competitive environment right now, and we have to deliver.”

Education, Training Lead to Savings

Besides linen management, another area where Space Coast Hospital Services has reduced client linen costs is in isolation gowns. Carey credits Bobby Coble, territory manager, acute care, Encompass Group, with helping meet client needs.

“Traditional gowns tie in the back,” Coble says. “Ties in the back are more difficult for patients to untie. Disposables were reportedly preferred by many patients because they could just rip them off and throw the gown away.”

Encompass came up with a gown that ties on the side, enabling patients to more easily take it off and making the garment more acceptable for isolation applications, according to Coble.

Space Coast Hospital Services provides linen management support in each hospital in areas of linen utilization and educational programs. It also partners with Encompass, which provides customers with a linen-management tracking tool to pinpoint cost and usage by user area.

Pam Perdicaro, Carey’s service manager, reaches out to hospital clients to help them better understand laundry and linen operations, and how correct procedures can reduce their costs.

Quarterly hospital linen service director meetings and semi-annual on-site linen awareness programs emphasize training. “Nursing needs to understand that any additional linen left in a room has to be removed and sent back to the laundry for processing when the patient leaves,” Perdicaro says. “Storing additional items in a patient room just adds to their costs.”

There is improvement after the meetings and training, according to Perdicaro, but the laundry has found that regular reviews are needed to keep things fresh in everyone’s mind.

For example, the laundry learned that some certified nursing assistants were discarding soiled incontinent pads that could have been laundered. “They were throwing away the items that they thought were ‘too dirty,’” Perdicaro says.

“Another major area of linen cost that we manage is linen loss from transport,” Carey says. “We now provide specific EMT packs of linen for transporting patients leaving a hospital. The packs contain linen items needed, but they may have a small stain or tear that would keep them out of our standard linen inventory.”

It is an efficient way to utilize linen that would otherwise go to rag out, while in turn reducing clients’ linen losses, Carey says.

“Information and training saved one of our clients $350,000 over the last five years by reducing their pounds per adjusted patient day,” he says.

Staff is Key to Co-op Laundry’s Success

Carey credits his staff with initiatives to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Plant Operations Manager Ray Esche evaluated truck run and idle times to reduce diesel consumption.

“We used to have to keep our trucks idling during the unload process in order to power the lift gates,” Carey says. “We worked with our lift gate supplier to install remote lift-gate power outlets at the dock. Now, the lift gates work off electricity, allowing the diesel engines to shut down.”

Space Coast Hospital Services also installed governors on its delivery trucks to limit highway speeds to 68 mph. Fuel consumption reports show that transportation miles per gallon were increased by 14.5% for the truck fleet.

Kelley Desjardins, production manager, tracks daily plant processing production every day.

“We bonus our production employees for performance,” Desjardins says. “Once the plant performance threshold is met, the production employee needs to reach at least 98% of the production standard for any bonuses to kick in. Bonuses increase as pounds per operator hour increases for the entire plant.”

The plant, originally built in 1982, was expanded and upgraded with tunnel washer technology in the early ’90s. Two Milnor tunnel washers and four Chicago Dryer Co. finishing lines meet core production requirements.

Although designed for 15 million pounds per year on a single shift five days a week, economic conditions have reduced processing requirements.

“In order to reduce operating costs and still keep our people working, we went to four production days, eliminating Wednesday linen processing,” Carey says. “Office, maintenance, and delivery still operate five days per week.”

Thirty-one of 67 employees have worked at Space Coast for more than 10 years. “Our people are the key to our success, and employee retention is very important to us,” Carey says.

He remains positive about the future. “We are well positioned for additional business. We will continue to be a high-quality linen service and will always stay committed to our mission of providing the best service and quality product at the lowest possible cost.”

Click here for Part 1.

INWOOD, N.Y. — Laundrylux has appointed Tim Smith the company’s Southern regional business manager for on-premise laundry.

“Tim knows distribution, he knows customer demands in many market segments, and he has a command of technology—which is becoming ever more important in our industry,” says Kim Shady, Laundrylux senior executive vice president for OPL and national accounts.

Smith brings more than 20 years of experience in the commercial laundry industry. He has worked as a service agent, owned and operated a dry cleaning plant, sold OPL equipment for a large distributor, and for the past eight years has been a regional sales manager for Unipress.

He will be based in Tennessee, near Nashville, where he lives with his wife and three sons.

Textile/Uniform Rental: David Dersheimer, SITEX Corp.

There are certainly differences in what commercial or rental plants may choose or use for equipment and procedures when compared to institution-based laundries and their respective facilities.

Generally, the volume and product mix of a rental or commercial facility tends to fluctuate more than an institutional facility’s does.

Rental facilities tend to make equipment and process decisions based on current mix and volume plus projected growth. They have smaller load quantities in varying item mixes. The soil levels in rental plants also tend to range broadly from light to heavy.

Institutional laundries have a more consistent volume and less variance in soil classifications. And there is typically less variation in soil levels and volumes in a healthcare, nursing home or hotel laundry.

But I’m not sure you could define differences in laundries based only on these two categories or generalities. You might need to ask a few questions, such as:

• What is the item mix, and how many different sort classes/soil levels are there?
• What is the facility’s planned growth? Is there anticipated growth in one segment or area? If so, how will that impact the volume and mix?
• How would product mix affect equipment decisions?
• Is the wash operation running batches or smaller, varying loads, or loads of similar volume and sort class? Does the facility need single or convention machines, or would a continuous batch washer be a better choice?
• If flatwork finishing, is volume or flexibility needed? For large pieces, does the facility need a sheet feeder, table linen feeder, or a machine that can do both? Is an ironer needed to handle napkins and pillowcases?

Differences between any two laundries, whether commercial or institutional, can be quite distinct. One needs to assess current mix, planned growth, and output expectations to determine individual needs.

Consulting Services: Ron Evans, RJ Evans and Associates

There are several procedural differences between industrial rental laundries and institutional laundries. Growth, greater competition, incomparable number of products processed, and profit are the driving and dividing forces.

Since most rental laundries have hundreds if not thousands of customers, their processing practices must be much more flexible and expanded than an institutional laundry that may have a singular or limited common customer base.

Since rental laundries exist in a much more competitive environment, it is essential for the production department’s contribution to the rental company’s bottom line be fully within strict budget forecasts. The trick here is that all production forecasts are predicated on sales forecasts, and the latter can be difficult to project for a coming year.

There is a constant need to search for improved best practices to satisfy the varied demands upon their daily changes in usage, product variation and resource allocation. It becomes essential to leverage all advantages that eliminate or reduce waste while at the same time operate within projected budget requirements. These are all centered on “lean and mean” customer satisfaction.

The production department’s contribution to bottom-line profit in a rental laundry is scrutinized and monitored due to its constantly changing customer base. Rental laundry production management must be much more engaged and “hands on” in addressing all the demands of its varied customers’ needs. Pressures on rental managers are more numerous and dynamic than those on institutional managers. Rental production managers must be good business managers as well as knowing their trade.

Another difference is the role of a production department in a rental industrial laundry. Full-time salespeople use their production department as a sales tool and regularly take potential customers on plant tours. Therefore, the department always has to be in marketable “showplace” condition.

A rental laundry’s service department also uses the production department as a customer-retention tool. Service departments have developed sophisticated programs to elevate a customer’s understanding of the rental laundry’s value in maintaining their fixed costs, convenience, and quality standards. As such, they constantly market environmental advantages in waste treatment, sanitary conditions, safety practices, and inventory control. Processing techniques are used not only for production but to gain and retain customers.

Because of its dedicated freestanding facility, the rental laundry has acquired a “target” on its back for every governmental inspector. Consequently, it must operate under the assumption that it will have city, state, regional and federal government inspectors in its facilities throughout the year. The end result is rental laundries have unsurpassed training and updated performance exercises in safety, waste management, OSHA, and human resource issues out of the realization that they will be audited. This constant pressure creates a professional, self-policing system and a comfort zone for their customers.

Both types of industrial laundries have similar equipment, chemicals and procedures for the items they process in common. Because of the difference in competitive situations, rental laundries must operate at a higher level of customer speed to retain revenue-generating clients.

It has been my experience that most rental production managers could operate an institutional laundry quite easily while most institutional production managers would have to expand their skills to effectively manage a rental industrial laundry.

Equipment Manufacturing: Kim Shady, Laundrylux Corp.

How do you define commercial laundry or institutional laundry? Often, those terms are used interchangeably. So let’s remove the descriptive terms and be more absolute. What is the equipment difference between a laundry processing less than 3,000 pounds per day and a laundry processing more than 3,000 pounds per day?

In the simplest form, the equipment differences can be defined by automation. It may reduce labor costs, improve quality, reduce processing time or save energy. As the pounds processed per day increase, there become economies of scale for each of these items.

While improved quality may be a goal for selecting automation, the determining factor is most likely the return on investment (ROI). You can calculate this by projecting labor savings, energy savings and maybe even overhead by square foot vs. the cost of automation.

A small-piece folder is one of the smallest investments for automation. It can process towels, gowns, blankets or fitted sheets. If your laundry is processing 1,000 pounds of these items a day, a small-piece folder could reduce your staffing by one person. An institutional laundry is likely using a staff of two to hand-fold these items. If a basic small-piece folder is $45,000, what might the ROI be?

Commercial laundries likely process a large quantity of flat goods. Automation in this case may include automatic pickers to replace one or two staff members.

Processing linens through an ironer requires the least amount of energy per pound of finished goods. But that doesn’t mean ironing is the lowest-cost method for processing goods. An institutional laundry may use an ironer but lack automation, thus requiring two to four staff members.

Over the last five years, numerous ironers on the market have offered feeding, folding and stacking built into the ironer, allowing a single operator to process 150 or more pounds per hour. Processing 75 pounds per hour is a common goal in laundries without automation. A machine with these features can reduce the staffing required for ironing. The additional investment for the feeder, folder and stacker may be $100,000. What might the ROI be for this automation?

Labor will always be the largest cost of operating a laundry. An institutional laundry can be limited in methods for reducing labor costs, so automation can be a difference maker. It is the difference between the equipment selections in a commercial laundry and an institutional laundry.

Member at Large: Douglas Story, Swisher Hygiene

When I first read this question, I thought, “What in the heck can anyone say about this? Processing fabric is processing fabric, right?” But it is a good question that has forced me to look not so much at the equipment or procedures that are used by the two laundry types but at the philosophies behind the use of that equipment.

As I was contemplating what I would write, I was inspired by one of my favorite “philosophers,” Jeff Foxworthy. Here, offered somewhat tongue-in-cheek, are some differences between a commercial laundry and an institution-based laundry:

• If the laundry manager is a graduate in hospitality management and is in the job as a learning experience, it might be an institution-based laundry.
• If a washer’s rated capacity is used as the measure of the pounds of linen being processed, it might be an institution-based laundry.
• If a washer’s rated capacity is considered an estimate and everyone knows that it can hold another 100 pounds, it might be a commercial laundry.
• If the laundry manager loads the washer and then walks to the next room to welcome a guest and offer them a cookie, it might be an institution-based laundry.
• If the laundry manager is proud of his washroom’s 2,000 lbs/hr production but can’t understand how two 100-pound dryers can keep up, it might be a commercial laundry.
• If the laundry manager, when asked why he has 10 washers and two flatwork ironers stored in the parking lot, answers, “Parts,” it might be a commercial laundry.
• When employees stay later to produce more laundry, it might be a commercial laundry.
• When employees stay later to clean the rooms or provide patient care, it might be an institution-based laundry.
• When the flatwork ironer goes down and the laundry manager prays for its recovery, it might be a commercial laundry.
• When the laundry manager can give you the cost per piece, labor, utilities, fixed and variable cost itemized, it might be a commercial laundry.
• When the laundry manager says, “I don’t know all of my utility costs,” it might be an institution-based laundry.

There are philosophical differences between commercial (for-profit) and institutional (not-for-profit or support services) laundries, but it is not, for the most part, in the equipment or processes they use. It is more in how management approaches the business and customer service sides of the operation.

In the past, the primary focus of a commercial laundry was the customers that paid for their service. By contrast, this was/is not always the case for the institutional laundry. But as we look to the future, I believe that we are seeing the philosophies of these two operations beginning to merge.

Institutional laundries are becoming more like their commercial counterparts because of economic pressures and because many of the organizations operating these laundries have realized the impact they have on the bottom line of the institutions they serve.

Commercial and institutional laundries are becoming more customer-focused, so both are looking at better, or more efficient, ways to improve the way they do business for the customers they serve. For both, it is a matter of survival.

Click here for Part 1.

RICHMOND, Va. — Cintas Corp.’s Chester, Va., facility has received the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) “Star” worksite designation from the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the agency’s highest recognition for the practice of and commitment to exemplary occupational safety and health.

It is the third Cintas uniform rental operation to receive the coveted status, and the fourth company-wide.

“This type of achievement can only be realized when everyone is working together for one common goal,” says Howard Baron, general manager of Cintas in Chester, near Richmond. “To say I’m proud of my team would be an understatement. It’s a great accomplishment that is deserved by a great group of employee-partners.”

“Receiving the VPP ‘Star’ award here in the state of Virginia is no small feat. Every year, only a small number of companies are awarded this status,” says Jim Cheng, Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade.

As a facility with leading safety and health practices, the Chester uniform rental facility constantly integrates improvements to its safety and health programs. Cintas employs 120 people in Chester and 1,000 statewide.

Association for Linen Management webinar on Outsourcing Linen Services, presented at 2 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Central, noon Mountain, 11 a.m. Pacific. Call 800-669-0863 for more information.