Content about The facility

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

A contingency plan for power outages should be comprehensive and encompass multiple areas within the operation. As a healthcare laundry, it is critical to deliver consistently and on time to customers. We employ a contingency plan outlined as follows:

• Provide ample supply of par at customers’ facilities
• Work in advance
• Maintain an inventory of processed linen
• Maintain an inventory of new linen
• Prepare for emergency through redundancy and backup plans
• Operate with reserve capacity

First, managing within The Joint Commission’s requirements to maintain a certain par, or number of days’ worth of laundry at customers’ facilities, and ensuring ample supply for the appropriate number of days is important. Second, working ahead in the plant, and having processed linen ready for delivery in advance aids readiness and consistent supply. Holding in reserve new linen at your own plant facilitates the availability of excess inventory in the case of emergency or power outage.

Securing additional power generation in case of emergency is important for successful contingency planning. Either owning your own backup power generator and maintaining it, or identifying suppliers and securing an agreement to lease a generator when needed is a proactive approach to ensure your laundry is in the front of the queue within hours of the request, at a time when demand may be high. Having agreements with backup processors in a geographically desirable radius of your service areas should be the final step in your contingency plan.

Finally, processing below actual capacity allows the operation to ramp up throughput and provide additional volume after an interruption. By operating below total capacity, a facility not only reduces wear and tear on equipment, it ensures its ability to respond quickly and “catch up” as needed in outage situations. Plant redundancy is a crucial aspect of capacity, and having a facility with extra machinery, boiler power and air compression allows for tremendous increase in throughput when needed.

We at Emerald Textiles tested our contingency plan on Sept. 8, 2011, when all of San Diego County and some neighboring cities were completely without power. Having a solid plan in place allowed us to maintain operations and deliveries seamlessly.

HEALTHCARE LAUNDRY: SCOTT BEATON, KAISER PERMANENTE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

The definition of a good contingency plan is as follows:

The plan shall provide for the uninterrupted operations and services in the event of any occurrence potentially leading to the disruption of the provider’s operations. Such disruptions include, but are not limited to, loss of utilities, medical emergencies, natural and/or man-made disasters, fire, inclement weather, work stoppage, and/or major accidents.

A contingency plan should include the following components:

• Plant and transportation contingency protocol
• Key member re-call chain
• Contact list of backup laundry facilities
• Backup source of textiles on call

The provider should furnish a mechanism to inform. A step-by-step procedure should be in place in the event of an emergency and shall be available to supervisors, each of whom may be responsible for execution of the protocol.

All employees should be familiar with the major elements of the plants contingency protocol in the event of emergencies.

The pyramid re-call chain should be written, complete, current, and available to all supervisory personnel, so that timely and accurate contact can be made in case of an emergency.

A designated person should maintain the call chain and be responsible for updating it at least annually or when personnel changes occur, and distributing the list to personnel.

The facility should have written agreements with one or more alternate laundry providers that could cover the facility’s volume, detailing when and how these providers will process textiles in an emergency.

Such agreements shall be updated annually, signed and dated.

The provider should have adequate transportation capabilities with contingency planning.

The facility should have written agreements in place with one or more alternate textile suppliers, detailing the services and delivery times provided.

CHEMICALS SUPPLY: MARLENE WILLIAMS, ANDERSON CHEMICAL CO., LITCHFIELD, MINN.

Power outages tend to be regional—it is unlikely an entire city will be without power. As a contingency plan, have another laundry ready to take your work in case of a short-term power outage. This can be another institution in the same business you are, or a commercial laundry.

Have the agreements worked out in advance so that the switchover is as smooth as possible. There will have to be many accommodations made in your facility to get this done, and you need a contingency plan that everyone understands and agrees to.

The second thing you can do is to acquire a dedicated gas-powered generator that automatically comes on in the event of an emergency. Laundries can be “sinkholes” for power, however, so the best idea here if you have a large laundry is to maintain a dedicated generator with the ability to “dump” large quantities of power on demand. (A large washer going into extract can pull down an incredible amount of power in the first 30 seconds of start-up, so your generator system needs to be able to accommodate this huge spike in demand.)

These two actions, along with keeping adequate linen on hand (having a two-par inventory in locked storage would help if you are located in an area where power outages might be expected) are your options for addressing power outages.

It is far less likely that you will suffer a gas outage, but it is still a good idea to have a propane backup for the possible loss of natural gas (I’m thinking here of ground disturbances such as earthquakes). The changeover from natural gas to propane is relatively easy, and your maintenance team should be ready for this conversion at any time with the parts and know-how to get the job done quickly and with a minimum of disruption.

If you are in a zone where these ground disturbances are probable, get a large propane tank and prep your team for this contingency.

(Editor’s note: Williams received assistance from consultant John White in writing this month’s response.)

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

OAK CREEK, Wis. — When Crothall Laundry Services officially opened its new 83,000-square-foot plant during a June 27 ribbon-cutting ceremony, it marked a couple of important firsts for the Crothall Healthcare service line.

The $13 million state-of-the-art facility is the first that Crothall has built from the ground up, and it is reportedly the first laundry in the world to certify (its processing included) under certain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environ-mental Design) standards. And Crothall managed to complete the construction project—aided by many industry vendors—in nine months.

A hundred dignitaries filed into a tent erected in the plant’s parking lot to listen to congratulatory remarks from Bobby Kutteh, CEO of parent company Compass Group; Steve Carpenter, president of Crothall Laundry Services; and others before touring the gleaming facility.

The plant can process approximately 25 million pounds of clean linen per year in one shift or up to 50 million pounds annually on two shifts. Crothall claims it is producing efficiencies exceeding 150 pounds per operator hour.

Crothall built the stand-alone plant south of Milwaukee after Aurora Health Care decided that its Crothall-run campus laundry in Milwaukee would be converted to another use. The facility processes 18 million pounds annually for 17 hospitals. Crothall has been processing linen for Aurora Health Care since 2000.

ARCO/Murray National Construction Co. was responsible for all construction phases. Various manufacturers and Pellerin Laundry Machinery Sales Co. provided design, installation, start-up and training services. Herb Fitzgerald Co. assisted locally.

Three PulseFlow® tunnel washers (150-pound modules) from Pellerin Milnor Corp. supply the needed washing capacity. Their patent-pending technology incorporates top-transfer batch processing. On average, the system is capable of laundering healthcare linen at a water-consumption rate of approximately 0.45 gal/lb, saving Crothall roughly 8.5 million gallons—or 39% compared to the traditional tunnel washing process—annually.

The E-Tech soil-sort area utilizes continuous sorting on rail, featuring LED-display sort windows and computerized tunnel-load sequencing.

A press-to-dry rail system automatically carries 300-pound bags of clean laundry on rails overhead to any available Milnor dryer, replacing the traditional shuttle.

Next page: The new plant processes laundry without using high-pressure steam boilers…

BOISE, Idaho — St. Luke’s Health System unveiled a major expansion project last week that will greatly increase its capacity for laundry services, the healthcare system reports.

The $11.5 million expansion project created a new central laundry that will open in March. It and a new $6.3 million reference laboratory are located in adjacent buildings just off Federal Way in Boise.

GREENVILLE, N.C. — The American Laundry News Wire recently featured a link to a great article by Ken Tyler about the lack of planning for the laundry [Design-Build for a Better Future].

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At Superior Linen Supply Co., the Kartsonis family and other principals in the independent, family-owned company can look back on any number of important moments and appreciate how they have molded and shaped the 115-year-old business.

Few dates in its lengthy lineage have been as significant to Superior Linen as Dec. 1, 2006.

DAYTON, Ohio — Premier Health Partners (PHP) has opened a modern, high-tech commercial laundry processing plant to serve multiple PHP hospitals and entities in this area.

Premier Health Partners decided that a hospital-owned and -operated laundry would maintain a higher level of quality and control at a lower cost than outsourcing alternatives.

HARTFORD, Conn. — Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center has begun laundry operations at a new, state-of-the-art facility in leased space inside a historic Hartford building, the hospital reports in a press release.

The laundry covering 22,000 square feet employs 35 people in producing more than 6 million pounds of laundry annually for Saint Francis and another 4 million pounds for area hospitals. It has additional capacity should demand for its services increase, the hospital reports.