JUNE 2013
Late News Virginia VA medical center refreshes laundry services RICHMOND, Va. — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that it has contracted with Western State Design, Hayward, Calif., for new laundry equipment for the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center (VAMC). The $7.8 million contract will provide a steamless system—the latest in design and first of its kind for a VA medical center—resulting in a more efficient, and energysaving laundry, the VA says. The OPL serves the medical center, Hampton VAMC, Ft. Lee, Fayetteville VAMC, Camp Perry, Ft. Eustis, and Langley Air Force Base. The new equipment will greatly enhance its capacity and offer the medical center and community partners the opportunity for additional services, the VA says. More than 4 million pounds of laundry is processed annually through the Richmond facility. Equipment has been maintained but as newer technologies became available, renovations became necessary. Sylvia Small, production leader, has for the last 25 years led a team of 40 employees responsible for washing, drying, folding and sorting linens and other items for the VAMC and other community partners. She’s seen the increase in partners utilizing the laundry service over the years and says she is looking forward to the new equipment. The features are expected to be installed, tested and in use ALN by this fall.
Volume 39, Number 6
running the route:
Delivery fleets require constant attention By Bruce Beggs, Editorial Director CHICAGO — Route operations is an important function of any successful rental or commercial laundry and requires constant attention. The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) says the textile services industry deploys a combined fleet of 25,000 trucks weekly to deliver goods to thousands of healthcare and hospitality facilities, and to businesses such as restaurants, auto repair shops, and others. TRSA calculates that 1.8 million U.S. business locations are textile services customers generating roughly 15 billion pounds of laundry per year delivered by the third largest fleet of vehicles (behind only FedEx and UPS). Efficient delivery of clean goods and pickup of soiled goods is what separates one textile service operation from the next. ROUTE OPTIMIZATION
Route optimization can help companies eliminate routes and potentially reduce their costs by thousands of dollars per route. Ask yourself: Do your drivers stop where it is most cost-effective for your organization, or do they stop where they want to stop and that’s
See ROUTE on Page 19
(Photo: © iStockphoto/Eliza Snow)
Restaurant association recognizes value of TRSA’s Clean Green certification ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Green Restaurant Association (GRA) has incorporated TRSA’s Clean Green certification for textile services operations into its Green Restaurant program, enabling restaurants to earn points toward the Green Restaurant designation by using a Clean Greencertified laundry. “This recognition by the Green Restaurant Association reflects the relevance of the TRSA Clean Green program and the importance of supply chain partners’
green practices to restaurants’ sustainability,” says TRSA CEO & President Joseph Ricci. The textile services industry provides restaurants and other foodservice operators with pickup/delivery service of laundered reusable products such as napkins, tablecloths, garments, towels, floor mats and other hygiene and reusable textile products. Clean Green certification differentiates launderers by verifying their adherence to a well-defined list of green management practices and compliance
with energy and water conservation standards. Boston-based Green Restaurant Association provides environmental certification for restaurants, designating them as “Green” through a point system that assesses their sustainability. A restaurant must qualify initially by attaining 100 points from a variety of practices related to water, energy and waste. Each restaurant must then recertify annually, making an additional 10 points worth of improvements to maintain certification.
www.americanlaundrynews.com
Inside Clean Show Expectations
Willingness to fully participate will decide event’s true value: Frederick
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efficient for them? Cyndi Brandt, Roadnet Technologies (formerly UPS Logistics), once addressed the value of logistics during a TRSA meeting presentation. It isn’t enough to use index cards or pushpins and colored string to map out this week’s routes, she says. There’s a variety of routing software products on the market that can provide as much or as little planning help as is desired. The traditional approach of focusing on daily, tactical route planning leads to what Brandt calls “reactive” planning, which can find a operator tweaking their routes due to volume fluctuations, making off-day deliveries and pickups, and even adding vehicles when capacity falls short, all of which create added costs and headaches. She favors a more proactive approach, even using more than one route scheduling method to gain the greatest business advantage. Keys to best practices are to plan a transportation strategy, collect data in support of your strategy, analyze that data regularly and then implement changes based on your analysis, she says.
Any restaurant utilizing a Clean Green-certified laundry now can receive a total of four points toward Green Restaurant certification: two in the energy practices category and two in water practices. Verification of standards must be provided. In addition, utilizing reusable napkins adds six points. Clean Green quantifiably validates the reusable textile industry’s positive environmental impact and will soon receive ASTM International approval, TRSA ALN says.
The Newspaper of Record for Laundry & Linen Management
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Panel of Experts
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Doing laundry in cramped quarters leads to sloppy work
5/23/13 7:18 PM