American Laundry News - June 2016

PROS Parts Inc. acquires Parts PROS

MINNEAPOLIS —

PROS Parts has completed the acquisition of competitor Parts Pros of Westport, Mass., the company reports. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Parts Pros was formed in 2008 after Hoyt ceased manufacturing operations, according to the company. Before Hoyt closed, it had acquired Omega Cleaning Systems of Canada.

“The acquisition of Parts Pros will allow us to better service the needs of Hoyt and Omega machinery worldwide and ensure owners of those brands a reliable source for replacement parts,” says Barry Victor, owner of PROS Parts.

This acquisition is the third in a series of acquisitions aimed at improving the company’s ability to offer replacement parts for all laundry and drycleaning machinery, according to PROS Parts.

The company says similar acquisitions of Imparts in 2010 and Amalind in 2005 improved its ability to support brands such as Vic, Bowe, Ama, Lindus and Suprema as well as other brands’ equipment.

Toll-free numbers and fax numbers previously in use by Hoyt, Omega and Parts Pros will be automatically directed to PROS Parts sales staff, the company says. ALN

What is in store for laundry operations in the future?

BY MATT POE, EDITOR

CHANDLER, Ariz. — What is the future of the laundry industry going to look like?

A variety of factors will influence that future: the global economy, changes in the marketplace, workforces. But what might the future hold, and how can the industry make a difference?

This was the topic of discussion at the Association for Linen Management (ALM) annual conference here in February during the session titled A Conversation Among Leaders Representatives from the Textile

Care Allied Trades Association (TCATA), the International Association for Healthcare Textile Management (IATHM), the American Reusable Textile Association (ARTA) and ALM examined the future of the industry in five areas: the return of textile mills to the United States, government regulation, equipment leasing, automation, and what the U.S. can learn from other countries.

TEXTILE MILLS RETURN TO U.S.?

The first topic of discussion was the possibility of U.S. textile mills

is a “swing”

Encouraging women to advance, and thrive, in the textile services industry

two sisters represent the first generation of female leadership in the company. She quickly learned that female leaders in textile services aren’t common to find.

BY MATT POE, EDITOR

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Kelly Miller of Regent Apparel in San Francisco is part of the fourth generation of family leadership in the uniform and napery rental business.

Miller is vice president of business development, and she and her

“It was pretty early on that I realized, going to different events, that I was one of the few women at these events,” she says.

The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) formed the Women in Textile Services Committee to get more women in industry leadership positions, and Miller is part of that committee.

Miller and Camille Peters, president and CEO, Mobile Computing

Corp. in Mississauga, Ontario, discussed this subject and what textile businesses, and women, can

do about it during a TRSA webinar called Encouraging Women to Thrive in the Textile Services Industry

BENEFITS OF GENDER DIVERSITY

The When Women Thrive 2016 report by Mercer found that women are perceived to have different, but critical, skills needed in today’s market, Peters says. Nearly 600 organizations were surveyed and see women to be much stronger in terms of flexibility and

Panel of Experts

returning operations to the home front. Textile manufacturers and processing industries have hinted that there

back here

for the mills.

Ed McCauley, president and

The Newspaper of Record for Laundry & Linen Management

There’s one tool necessary for success—effective communication.

Columnist at Large Eric Frederick discusses the

value of knowledge in

textile purchasing.

Companies shown to benefit from having women in leadership roles

Industry representatives discuss textile mills, government regulation, equipment leasing, automation and European advances

(Left to right) Ed McCauley, Linda Fairbanks, Mike Dineen and Rocco Romeo discuss the future of the laundry industry. (Photo: Matt Poe)

“IT WAS PRETTY EARLY ON THAT I REALIZED, GOING TO DIFFERENT EVENTS, THAT I WAS ONE OF THE FEW WOMEN AT THESE EVENTS.”

—KELLY MILLER, REGENT APPAREL

CHICAGO — Laundry managers and supervisors value certain employee traits, while the managers and supervisors need the skills to deal with employees lacking those qualities. That’s the sentiment shared by respondents who took part in American Laundry News’ most recent Your Views survey about effective personnel management.

The majority of those responding to this quarter’s survey indicated that their job title falls under laundry management (56.3%). General administration was selected 12.5% of the time. Environmental services, purchasing and housekeeping were each selected by 3.1% of respondents.

The remaining 21.9% indicated that their job titles fall under a variety of different categories.

Of the managers and supervisors who took the survey, 36.4% supervise fewer than 10 employees. Next came those who oversee 10-25 workers (27.3%), followed by 51-75 employees supervised (21.2%).

Just over 9% of survey respondents manage more than 100 laundry workers, while 6.1% supervise 26-50 employees.

No respondents indicated that they supervised 76-100 workers.

When it came to indicating a trait that respondents value most in those employees they supervise, the top vote-getter was dependability at 43.8%.

After dependability, trustworthy was most valued at 15.6%, followed by being a team player (12.5%), having a positive attitude (9.4%) and having the ability to take direction (3.1%).

Seeing that dependability was the trait most valued by survey respondents, it follows that the trait most likely to “tick off” a manager is being unreliable. More than 36% of those taking the survey have problems with that trait.

Respondents also take issue with those who aren’t team players or are unmotivated. Both of those answers were selected by 18.2% of respondents. Those were followed by being irritated by employees who don’t follow the rules (12.1%) and fail to meet goals and deadlines (6.1%).

Many laundry managers and supervisors who took the survey indicate that they have some common, or more difficult, issues to address with their employees.

“There was a sexual harassment complaint against a driver,” shares a respondent. “Both parties were guilty of inappropriate behavior but only one was my employee. The employee underwent a documented coaching session.”

“There is a noticeable line drawn between employees from different countries,” a respondent writes. “This strains the team player model, and I have to stress professionalism in order to maintain a cohesion within the crew. No one has let me down, but I deal with the atmosphere constantly.”

“Egos tend to get in the way of teamwork and productivity at times,” writes another. “I have the most trouble with staff who go out of their way to quietly undermine and borderline sabotage coworkers. It can be very difficult to ‘catch,’ and it can spread through the department quickly.

“In my experience, it tends to start with that one employee who believes they are above learning new things or refuse to learn new processes, and occasionally there are those whose sense of entitlement gives them the idea that they are above certain duties or tasks.”

One respondent writes about handling a procedural issue: “Having staff use

the correct program for washing and/or drying has been a challenge (i.e., using high heat for table linen). Table linen is more apt to wrinkle, so I made staff rewash and re-dry using correct cycles.”

Sometimes, if employee behavior or performance doesn’t improve, termination is the correct solution: “I had a hard-working, dependable employee caught on camera stealing tools. I had to terminate the employee.”

“I had an employee who called in sick every Monday after football on Sunday. I fired the employee,” writes another respondent.

Almost 70% of respondents indicated that they received some sort of formal management training before taking a supervisory role in the company, while 30% didn’t have any formal training.

Laundry managers who took the survey indicate several areas for training that would help in their current positions. Some of the areas of management respondents would like formal training in include how to be more assertive, interpersonal skills and stress management.

Another writes, “I’d like to learn how to turn an employee with attitude issues into a productive, positive employee.”

“I’m not aware of any training to address indifference,” writes another respondent.

Other topics survey takers want to learn more about are of a more legal nature: unemployment laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

One respondent writes, “I network with other owners and discuss issues. I learn a lot from my peers, even those from other industries.”

Others managers would just like time for supervisory duties. “I need more time to spend, some one-on-one time, with my staff,” writes a respondent.

While the Your Views survey presents a snapshot of readers’ viewpoints at a particular moment, it should not be considered scientific. Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%.

Subscribers to American Laundry News e-mails are invited to take the industry survey anonymously online. 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 identify industry trends.

Publisher

Charles Thompson

Phone: 312-361-1680

E-Mail: cthompson@ ATMags.com

Editorial Director

Bruce Beggs

Phone: 312-361-1683

E-Mail: bbeggs@ ATMags.com

Editor

Matt Poe

Phone: 231-740-2842

E-Mail: mpoe@ ATMags.com

Digital Media Director

Nathan Frerichs

Phone: 312-361-1681

E-Mail: nfrerichs@ ATMags.com

Advisory Board

Jim Buik • Richard Griffin

Greg Gurtler • Phil Hart

Janice Larson • Tom Marks

Gerard O’Neill

Richard Warren

Production Manager

Roger Napiwocki

National Sales Director

Donald Feinstein

Phone: 312-361-1682

E-Mail: dfeinstein@ ATMags.com

Main Phone: 312-361-1700 Fax: 312-361-1685

Subscriptions

630-739-0900 x100 www.americanlaundrynews.com

American Laundry News (ISSN 1091-9201) is published monthly. Subscription prices, payment in advance: U.S. 1 year $46.00; 2 years $92.00. Foreign, 1 year $109.00; 2 years $218.00.

Single copies: U.S. $9.00; Foreign $18.00. Published by American Trade Magazines LLC, 566 West Lake Street, Suite 420, Chicago, IL 60661. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER, Send changes of address and form 3579 to American Laundry News, Subscription Dept., 440 Quadrangle Drive, Suite E, Bolingbrook, IL 60440. Volume 42, number 6. Editorial, executive and advertising offices are at 566 West Lake Street, Suite 420, Chicago, IL 60661. Charles Thompson, President and Publisher. American Laundry News is distributed selectively to qualified laundry and linen management and distributors in the United States.

© Copyright AMERICAN TRADE MAGAZINES LLC, 2016. Printed in U.S.A. No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher or his representative. American Laundry News does not endorse, recommend or guarantee any article, product, service or information found within.

Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of American Laundry News or its staff. While precautions have been taken to ensure the accuracy of the magazine’s contents at time of publication, neither the editors, publishers nor its agents can accept responsibility for damages or injury which may arise therefrom.

MEMBERSHIPS

“

They have done everything they promised and more.”

– John Ambrose Magliocco, Arrow Linen, Garden City, NY

From

Arrow Linen first purchased their three Milnor CBW® tunnels two decades ago to replace conventional washer-extractors in their original laundry located in Brooklyn, NY. Since then, Arrow’s business grew to warrant a second laundry. In 2013, Arrow expanded operations–and raised their roof 11 feet! Arrow could have chosen any manufacturer to equip their new washroom, but they knew that would get longevity, durability, and accountability with Milnor.

Arrow’s customers’ restaurant linen requires frequent color and soil change formulas, but the quality is not compromised. Corporate Engineer Frank Park boasted the tunnels “have increased our workload over 40% without increasing energy, water, or labor costs we experienced when we converted the conventional washers to CBW® tunnels over 20 years ago. The major improvements from the CBW® to PBW™ are far superior washing capability with only 50% water consumption.”

To find out how PulseFlow® can cut your water bill in half, contact an authorized Milnor distributor or call 504-712-7656.

left to right: Frank Park, John Ambrose Magliocco, Ron Hirsch, and John Anthony Magliocco

Ticket to a 2-D trade show

If you’ve been in the industry a while, chances are you’ve attended a Clean Show.

It’s arguably the premier trade exhibition in the textile care industry. Hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees populate the expansive trade show floor, connecting equipment and supplies with the operations that need them.

But this is an “off” year for Clean. How can you stay on top of what’s going on in the industry?

American Laundry News has you covered, and you can even put your feet up instead of making them sore. In the pages of this issue, you’ll find our biennial Exhibit in Print.

Beginning on page 22, you’ll find supplier “booths” set up to share new products and services,

From The Director’s Chair BRUCE BEGGS

or to simply acquaint you with their company’s brand.

And to expand upon the trade show experience, we’ve included stories on educational sessions and webinars from industry associations like the Association for Linen Management (ALM) and the Textile Rental Services

Association (TRSA).

The Exhibit in Print is another tool we provide, in addition to our traditional coverage like Tools of the Trade, Career Track and Trade Ticker. We’re here to keep you up to speed on the industry—without having to leave your office or plant.

You can even read the publication on your computer or tablet. And for updates throughout the week, find us on Facebook and Twitter.

On another note, American Trade Magazines LLC, the publisher of this magazine, just celebrated its fifth anniversary.

We couldn’t do this without you and your continued support, so, thank you.

And now, put your feet up and head onto the “exhibit floor.” ALN

OSHA standardized labels and employee hazardous chemicals training compliance deadline June 1

BY TIM BURKE

June 1 isn’t D-Day—but, then again, it sort of is as far as global chemical labeling standards and laundry operations are concerned.

According to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) (29 CFR 1910.1200(g)) requires that the chemical manufacturer, distributor or importer provide Safety Data Sheets (SDS) (formerly known as MSDS, or Material Safety Data Sheets) for each hazardous chemical to downstream users, such as commercial laundries, to communicate information on these hazards.

To clarify, OSHA has new standardized labels and forms and requirements for training plant employees on hazardous chemicals. The OSHA deadline to comply: June 1.

In regards to the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard, “these regulations are written and designed to protect the workers,” says Fred Schwarzmann, president, A.L. Wilson Chemical Co. “By being compliant, [laundries] are working to protect their workers and businesses.”

Operators must have new OSHA Safety Data Sheets (SDS) available, pictograms for individual products, new standard labels and employee training on hazardous chemicals in their work area.

“We don’t want to have an inspector come into a [laundry] and pick you as the ‘canary in

See OSHA on Page 31

Know what you want from textile purchasing

I wrote an article in 2003 on this subject. I feel compelled to update the article this month.

Recently I have been approached by at least three companies selling a new line of textiles that will decrease bed sores and nosocomial infections. I have done some research into the handling, washing and presentation of these textiles, and I have not been impressed.

Often, the laundry professional is the last to be told of these products because the sales technique is to market it to the CEO or head of infection control. They want us to purchase their textiles and perform a study to prove their textiles actually work.

These companies are trying to develop a better product but are rushing it into the market far too quickly. Sometimes, these products are solutions looking for a problem to solve. This is not to say that there are not honest and hardworking salesmen and textile companies that are trying to engineer superior healthcare textiles. I have personally dealt with many excellent sales companies that I feel are beyond reproach.

In 2003, I declared that the textile purchasing field was typified by the saying, “Buyer Beware.” What makes the textile industry such a hazardous place for the novice or experienced textile purchaser? Perhaps it is the constant state of flux in the industry. Thread counts were fairly standard with classic 140 and 180 threads per square inch dominating the marketplace.

Today, polyesters dominate the market, either in blends or as stand-alone fabrics. Thread counts now vary from 128 to 600, with almost any combination of cotton polyester fibers available in each thread count.

Into this confusing world enters both the novice and the experienced buyer. There are several key rules for survival in this marketplace. The first is to know what it is that you want. It is not enough to know that I want a “66 by 90” sheet. This information is essential, but does not narrow the choices sufficiently.

The terms “percale” or “muslin” have lost their distinction (128 to 159 threads per square inch equals muslin while 160 to 600 threads per square inch equals percale).

Once the thread count is determined, then the fiber mixture needs to be determined. How much polyester and how much cotton? Other factors that will need to be considered are the hem size, finishing treatments, color and whether markings applied at the mill are desirable. Each factor could easily fill an entire article by itself.

Once you determine what it is you want to buy, require a sufficient number of textile samples to determine whether or not the samples meet your specifications.

•

•

•

•

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Too often I hear of new products that were purchased in hopes they would work and in the end caused patient dissatisfaction and higher replacement costs. Watch for more from me on textile purchasing next month. ALN

Eric Frederick is director of laundry services for Carilion Laundry Service, Roanoke, Va., and a past president and manager of the year of the Association for Linen Management. You can reach him by e-mail at efrederick@carilion.com.

COLUMNIST AT LARGE Eric L. Frederick, RLLD

“TOO OFTEN I HEAR OF NEW PRODUCTS THAT WERE PURCHASED IN HOPES THEY WOULD WORK AND IN THE END CAUSED PATIENT DISSATISFACTION AND HIGHER REPLACEMENT COSTS ”

(Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

CEO, United Hospital Services in Indianapolis, past president of ARTA, doesn’t see the return of textile mills in the short run.

“We heard [about returns] from a lot of the suppliers in the industry,” McCauley says. “I think when this started to happen in 2008-10, when the cost of fuel was high, China was booming. Weight trades in China started coming up, the projection was that we could probably start thinking five years down the line to put more manufacturers back in the states.”

What happened, he says, is that China’s economy took a downward turn. In addition, the price of all types of fuel is way down.

“That’s not to say those things can’t change, but with those two main items, I’m not seeing it right now,” says McCauley.

Mike Dineen, vice president, Pellerin Milnor Corp. in New Orleans, representing TCATA, sees three factors that lead him to believe the textile mills are coming back.

The first factor, Dineen says, is that the cost of cotton differential is about $900 a ton right now, China being more expensive than United States.

“There’s one place in the United States, a Chinese company in the United States, that sees 30,000 tons a year. They make yarn and cloth. But there is a $27 million differential in the cost of goods,” he says. “There are a lot of things shipping back and forth with that differential, so there is something there.”

Secondly, according to Dineen, is the return of the denim business.

“We were very much involved in the stonewash industry. NAFTA came through in 1994 and made that whole business disappear,” he says. “It went south. It went east. We no longer really were involved because they didn’t use high-tech equipment that was designed for the wash styles of jeans. It all just disappeared. Today, there is a manufacturer here in the United States that’s doing 90,000 yards a week domestic.”

Finally, Dineen says he spoke with a mill owner who is closing plants in Southeast Asia and bringing them back home to the United States.

“There are changes coming. It’s going to take a while,” he says. “As the marketplace changes, as the cost changes, that’s going to be the harbinger of what’s to come.”

McCauley says that certain items made elsewhere, such as sheets and towels, will not return to the United States.

“That stuff is not coming back, I can guarantee you that,” he says. “But there are parts of the industry that could, anecdotally,

come back.”

The technology in the United States has to be updated in order for mills to return, according to McCauley.

“What happened when they shut the mills down and sent them over there, they sent the equipment over,” he says. “They’re working on 1970s equipment. What you are going to see, they are going to retool the United States with the best equipment and bring it back that way so they can offset some of that added cost of operating here with high automation.”

With the mention of new technology, the question arose of whether or not a skilled labor force is available in the United States should textile mills return.

McCauley says that the country has the people and the skills. The problem, in his mind, is getting those technologically qualified employees to see laundry as a career option.

“There’s little bit of a disconnect with the laundry industry,” he says.

Dineen says his company is always looking for designers who will provide the “new stuff.”

90 to 120 days. We would probably see that come down to about a month.”

GOVERNMENT REGULATION

The discussion then moved on to the impact of a proposed laundry regulation bill in New York City.

The bill, Intro. 697, called the CLEAN Act, seeks to have local large-scale laundry facilities licensed by the City’s Department of Consumer Affairs. Council Member Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) introduced the bill in February 2015 in response to allegations of unsanitary laundry practices within the city.

Romeo believes that Torres raised some good points when proposing the bill.

“There are some horror stories, and you do have to ask a lot of questions,” he says.

However, a key concern for Romeo about the bill is that the Department of Consumers Affairs of New York City, which would be administering laundry regulations, says that it has no idea where to start in setting standards and licensing all these laundries.

“But I think the laundries of New York have to have Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC) or some accreditation,” Romeo says. “You have to step back and ask what’s wrong with working closely with either HLAC or some other standard.”

If the bill passes, he sees a larger issue coming into play. There will be different standards in different cities—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. It’s going to become confusing.

be able to answer questions about accreditation—and to help maintain standards.

“Just because a laundry is HLAC-accredited doesn’t mean that sometimes they don’t fall off the wagon. This can happen if leadership changes and other individuals come in their place,” she says. “Any one of us who contracts with a laundry service or has their own laundry has a responsibility to stay on top of what those standards should be to make sure whoever you’re working with is following those standards.”

Molko says that laundry operators should also be on top of things in case something should happen so they can defend the situation to leadership or defend any question that might come up.

“Our H.R. department is always at job fairs and colleges recruiting the next and best, but that doesn’t always work,” he says. “We have a lot of Navy personnel on staff who know how to get things done. These working veterans are very good on the technical side.”

Linda Fairbanks, executive director of ALM in Richmond, Ky., also sees a challenge in overcoming a lack of desire in the workforce.

“The challenge is getting people who are willing to work, with some of the programs that have been put in place in the U.S. that incentivize them to not put forth that effort,” she says. “We are going to have to instill that level of responsibility.”

If and when textile mills do return to the United States, how will laundry operations change?

Rocco Romeo, CEO, Ottawa Regional Hospital Linen Services in Ontario, president of IATHM, sees a benefit for laundry operations in lag time in terms of placing an order.

“If we had mills in the United States, it would reduce the lag time,” he says. “Right now, it takes

“My concern is, say, New York is HLAC, then you have the state of New Jersey next door with different standards. How do you do business?” says Romeo. “Sometimes we start to see all these different types of standards for laundries. It’s just going to cause all kinds of confusion.”

He says that it’s important for the industry to pick the best standards and practices and then “stick together.”

Fairbanks notes that even customers are getting confused when it comes to laundry standards.

“We have customers calling our office every day saying their current laundry is saying they have to do it this way. I have another laundry saying, no, that’s wrong, you have to do it this way. You have to have this accreditation. No, you have to be doing this on this basis. Plus, I’m a hospital, I’ve got the department of health telling me that in my state, I have to do X, Y and Z. The customers are getting very confused by the messages we’re sending them,” she says. “Outcomes should be, guidance should be, evidence-based.”

Cindy Molko, director for linen and central services at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and president-elect of ALM, says that the industry has the responsibility to

“I do believe a lot of [Torres’] comments can be addressed with industry standards,” says Romeo.

“He talks about the stakeholders. If you are a hospital, why are you not, in an RFP, looking for a laundry that has some type of accreditation? That to me is part of the problem.”

In the end, he says that regulations will be detrimental to the industry as fees and costs will rise for laundry operations to do business with approval from government agencies.

EQUIPMENT LEASING

The group then moved on to the topic of equipment leasing. Fairbanks says that the ALM rents its office copier. The lease includes toner, a certain number of printed pages, and maintenance.

What does the future hold if the laundry industry transitions to leasing equipment?

Dineen says that Pellerin Milnor Co. already works with a leasing company. He says leasing is available with smaller pieces of equipment, not large ones.

“In that discussion, there’s a maintenance factor in there. We want to make sure that if you have it for four years and go belly-up, we want that piece back that looks pretty good,” Dineen says. “So we

have a maintenance arrangement to come back periodically and look at it.

“It’s very similar to leasing a car. If you were to take it down to a drag strip, paint a number on the side, you’re going to have to pay a lot at the end, rather than take care of it, oil changed and everything, turn it in and they’re very happy.”

Dineen shares the story of a laundry he visited because it was having trouble with a tunnel washer.

“The owner had a beautiful, new Mercedes he wanted to drive to lunch,” he says. “I said, ‘Are you going to have Jake change the oil and spark plugs in your new car?’ And he said, ‘Oh, no, no. I’m going to have this down to the dealer, and it’s going to be Hans from Germany who’s been in the factory.’ I said, ‘Bingo, that’s your problem. Why am I here? Because you’re having problems with a machine that is a little more sophisticated than the old machine that the mechanic knew inside and out.’

“It had 18 moving parts. This one has 4,000 little things, so you have to have the right people, you have to train, you have to have a budget, parts, and don’t let them go.”

Randy Wendland, corporate director of textile management services, ABM Healthcare Support Services in St. Clair Shores, Mich., and president of ALM, sees the maintenance factor as a continuing issue for laundry operations, whether equipment is leased or not.

“That’s something we’ve all been struggling with as we look for our succession plan,” he says. “We may not have those Navy guys as chief mechanics in our plants. When they’re going to retire, having to replace them is a huge challenge.”

Wendland sees a void for available training courses in the industry, and believes a good training program is needed for the mainte-

“THERE ARE CHANGES COMING. IT’S GOING TO TAKE A WHILE. AS THE MARKETPLACE CHANGES, AS THE COST CHANGES, THAT’S GOING TO BE THE HARBINGER OF WHAT’S TO COME.”

—MIKE DINEEN, PELLERIN MILNOR CORP.

(Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

LOOK BETTER. SPEND LESS.

Your clients expect the highest quality – and they should. Girbau Industrial washers and dryers provide a high-caliber clean while extending linen life. Add an Ironer to your equipment mix and linen is perfectly ironed straight from the washer. It feels soft and looks crisp, which is what your clients expect. Thanks to Girbau Industrial laundry equipment, you’ll heighten laundry productivity using less labor, while decreasing utility costs. Even better? Clients will thank you!

Tools f the Trade

Ironing system

products

featured on new website

Continental Girbau Inc. recently unveiled a new website featuring OnePress Ironing Systems, the company reports.

The improved website—www.onepressironer. com—is mobile-friendly, simple to navigate, graphically appealing, content-rich and search engine-optimized, according to OnePress Marketing Communications Director Tari Martin.

“The site clearly defines OnePress ironing products, which are engineered for medium- and highvolume laundries across North America,” she says.

Site visitors will also find product brochures, warranty bonds and technical specifications.

“OnePress ironers are highlighted,” says Martin, “including the Z-Series Heated-Roll Ironer and the Compact 5-in-One, which feeds, irons, folds, stacks and accumulates.”

Each OnePress system delivers superior quality and productivity from a compact footprint, according to Joel Jorgensen, OnePress vice president of sales and customer services. The Compact 5-in-One quickly feeds, irons, folds, stacks and accumulates a variety of items using up to four lanes, the company says. Available in 24- and 32-inch diameters, with 102- and 130-inch finishing widths, the Compact 5-in-One precisely processes goods at speeds reaching 49 feet per minute.

The Z-Series Ironer, which is available in multiple finishing widths and 13- or 20-inch diameter rolls, offers no-wax technology and an intuitive control, says Continental. These return-to-feed ironers, which feature compact designs and optional integrated folding for maximum productivity in small spaces, are available in natural gas, steam and electric models.

“Both the Z-Series and Compact 5-in-One quickly finish damp linens straight from the washer— eliminating dryer conditioning,” says Jorgensen. “This dramatically improves productivity and quality, and simultaneously lowers labor costs.”

www.onepressironer.com 800-256-1073

Education website launched for apparel and accessories

SanMar Corp., a supplier of apparel and accessories, has launched SanMar U (www.education.sanmar.com), its online education website, the company reports. Designed to put product expertise at the fingertips of customers, the company says SanMar U delivers product and decoration education, expert advice, and trend and sales resources.

“Our customers regularly ask for more training and education about our products, trends and best practices for decoration,” says Lee Strom, vice president of marketing at SanMar. “With SanMar U, we deliver a wide array of tools and resources to help our customers become product experts.”

According to the company, SanMar U offers live and on-demand webcasts covering new products and trends; feature, fit and fabric guides for popular product categories; the revamped Fabric blog with expert advice, product overviews and inspirational messages;

decorating how-to videos; and more.

Seasonal marketing tips provide additional resources for timely selling events, including summer T-shirt sales, golf season and fall outerwear campaigns. SanMar U will soon add sales guides for business uniforms and back-to-school initiatives. Case studies, a product glossary and a social responsibility overview round out the collection of sales tools and resources.

www.sanmar.com 800-426-6399

RFID tags introduced for industrial linens

Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc. is now shipping its new UltraHigh Frequency (UHF) RFID tags for industrial garments and flat linens, the company reports.

For industrial applications, Fujitsu is introducing the new, ultra-rugged WT-A533 tag. The new linen tag has an advanced mechanical design which gives it extra strength and reliability in heavy-duty industrial garment and flat-linen applications, says Fujitsu.

The company says customers will have the ability to perform bulk reading of hundreds, even thousands, of articles simultaneously in seconds with high reliability and reading density. Bulk reading enables streamlined automated processes and significant reductions in labor costs compared to HF systems which require single or small quantity processing.

The WT-A533 tag is the same size

Thermopatch has made a breakthrough innovation in fire-retardant labels, the company reports.

According to Thermopatch, the TZ-FR label is the first fire-retardant label that can be printed on demand as needed on location. Additionally, Thermopatch says it also offers a pre-printing service.

TZ-FR labels are without adhesive on the back and are meant to be sewn onto the garment. The labels can be printed in either black or red ink, the company says.

TZ-FR complies with the performance requirements for NFPA - 1975, NFPA - 1977, NFPA – 1971 and NFPA - 1951, according to Thermopatch.

and has the same soft exterior as its predecessor, the WT-A522, but has increased reading range and rugged durability, the company says.

Randy Fox, vice president of sales and marketing, Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc., says, “The … tags provide any garment manufacture, rental or laundry operation one-stop shopping for all of their RFID needs.”

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“We are very excited to offer this new family of products,” says Bob Fudge, vice president of sales and marketing. “We would like to thank our customers for helping us to pursue these certifications.”

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Women

adaptability, inclusive team management and emotional intelligence.

“Companies with women represented in senior management had a higher return of equity than those with a lower representation,” says Peters. “This is a clear business rationale for improving gender diversity. A workforce that includes strong female talent effectively engages new and future clients.”

“Organizations with strong gender diversity are able to attract and retain talented women,” Miller says. “This is especially relevant as more women join the labor force.”

Miller goes on to say that having a genderdiverse workforce and leadership team is not about outside perception: checking the box, doing the right thing, being able to say the company or the team is diverse.

“It’s plain, old good for business,” she says. “Numerous studies and polls over the years have shown that having a gender-diverse workforce, where women leaders thrive, is good for businesses and teams across all industries. Companies with the best record for promoting women outperform industry revenue averages by 46%.”

Miller says that Gallup has conducted a variety of studies on gender-diverse workplaces. Some of the advantages that the research cites is that men and women have different viewpoints, ideas and market insight. This, she says, enables better problem-solving, ultimately leading to superior performance at the business unit level.

Another benefit Miller sees is that a gender-diverse workforce provides easier access to resources, such as various sources of credit, multiple sources of information and wider industry knowledge. It also allows companies to serve an increasingly diverse customer base.

STEPS FOR TEXTILE SERVICE BUSINESSES TO TAKE

With the benefits having a gender-diverse workforce brings, and the fact that more and more women are entering the labor force, Miller says that everyone in the industry, both men and women, should be looking at the team and organization as a whole and evaluate how it can encourage women to thrive.

“It’s really important to foster women leaders throughout every area of your organization,” she says.

Miller says textile service companies should think about the following questions and start a dialogue with its team:

• Where are the women in the talent pipeline?

• What skills are we helping women build?

• Do we provide sponsors along with role models?

• Are we rooting out unconscious biases?

• How much are our policies helping to develop women leaders?

Miller says that the first place a textile services company should start is to look at the business units and the team. Identify those units that are less gender-diverse.

Longer term, she says, a company will want to develop a hiring strategy that increases the gender diversity in those units, without reducing or ignoring merit and skills. Also, create an engaged culture that enables men and women to form trusting relationships that motivate both men and women to perform at a high level. Finally, Miller says, set some goals in the company and hold managers accountable for diversity.

“Businesses, now that we can see the differences, look for areas where you can change your business management practices to take advantage of the different skill sets that women have to offer,” says Peters.

STEPS FOR WOMEN TO TAKE

Women can take steps to be recognized for their different skill sets and what they can bring to the leadership team of a textile services company. But what’s an effective strategy?

“Should women act like men, or should you be yourself?” asks Peters. “Some think women can’t succeed because they don’t act like men. So, women take courses to be more assertive, dress for success in committee meetings in a dark, crisp suit, adopt the command-and-control approach. Unfortunately, this sometimes brands women as being too tough, unfeminine and aggressive.”

The lesson, she says, is that women need to be who they are and create their own persona and leadership style, one that works for each individual. Peters suggests that women need to create skill lists, both from professional and personal experiences.

“What have you done and what can you do now because of your personal experi-

Research shows that gender-diverse workplaces are good for teams and businesses. (Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

ences?” she says. “There’s value in updating your resume. In an interview or in a meeting, relate past accomplishments to the work at hand.”

Peters suggests documenting all accomplishments, in a journal, on a spreadsheet, even on LinkedIn.

Besides documenting skills and accomplishments, one of the most important ways that both men and women impact their careers, says Miller, is by cultivating their personal brand.

“This is a great way to frame your thinking about your professional trajectory,” she says. “What is a personal brand? The practice of people marketing themselves and career as brand. Self-packaging. It’s a way to communicate your values, your skills and your personality.”

Personal branding is much different than self-promotion, according to Miller, which is often frowned upon. Personal branding represents the value a person is constantly able to deliver.

Miller says that in today’s business environment, personal branding is a leadership requirement. It’s important for men and women to take charge and consciously manage and command what a personal brand says about you. She says it’s a full-time commitment to define yourself. With proper strategies, it can be part of everyday life.

“With social media platforms, the question is no longer if you have a personal brand, but if you choose to guide and cultivate the brand or let it be defined on your behalf,” says Miller.

She offers four steps for women to define their personal brand:

1. Know yourself.

2. Know your objective.

3. Know your target.

4. Know your platform for reaching your target.

Another area where women can make advances toward leadership is by working on networking skills.

“A recent McKinsey and Co. study, covering 300,000 employees across 118 companies, found that a woman’s odds of advancement are 15% lower than a man’s,” Miller reveals. “One of the major reasons that this study cites as the cause of this is that women have a different network than men.”

Many women struggle with this, she says.

While constantly hearing how important networking is, many do not participate in the traditional networking practices. Broadly speaking, according to Miller, many women shy away from networking opportunities, especially in a male-dominated environment, like the textile rental industry.

And women face a time challenge for these events, she says. They don’t want to take time away from personal life, so networking typically goes on the back burner.

“Here is where we can learn from our male peers,” Miller says. “Oftentimes, the strongest networks are the ones with many loose connections both within and outside of the industry. Broadly speaking, it’s more common for women to focus on a smaller number of deeper relationships, similar to personal ones. Men meet a lot of different types of people.”

Research shows that in a women’s network, they all know one another, she says, while men’s networks have a wide range of diverse people, and many do not know one another. In this way, men are able to connect other people and make themselves more valuable.

“Men are more comfortable going up to talk to complete strangers that they want to be meeting,” Miller says. “Women are much more likely to gravitate toward the people they already know because they want to catch up with them, and they’re more comfortable.”

However, she says that with constant practice, women can enhance their networking skills and expand their networks.

“These things do not happen in a day or week or maybe even in a year,” says Peters. “I worked many years at many different things before I became an owner and CEO of a business.”

She says that each promotion was gained through hard, focused work. At each move, she was able to create a value for the business enough that her supervisor or other senior managers recognized her contribution. Look around to where there are problems at work that need to be solved and dig in, she says.

“Women have different, but critical skills. Leverage them,” Peters says. “The key advantages for businesses are to offer competitive customer service viewpoints, offer thoughts on operational approach and general management of people.” ALN

POCKET MOPS

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Placing women in leadership roles brings different, critical skills to a business operation. (Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

nance staff of laundries.

“When I look at getting replacements, I look at the machine repair industry. It’s the closest discipline to what we’re looking for in laundry mechanics,” says Wendland. “But still they have to get the ins and outs of equipment.”

Dineen adds that laundries need to have a maintenance budget and a training budget. He says that in the future, maintenance could possibly have to be degreed engineers. So, laundries will have to pay more for their services.

“As we go forward, the industry is demanding that we have more sophisticated equipment,” he says.

“It boils down to get the production, to get the throughput with fewer people, you are going to have more elaborate equipment that has to be taken care of.”

McCauley believes leasing is risky from a manufacturer’s standpoint because of those variables that the company has no control over.

“For instance, nobody likes to maintain their equipment, so that’s going to have a big impact on the outputs and the life of the equipment,” he says. “Then you have operators that sometimes don’t understand or they have constraints and they load machines at 75% total. They don’t have the output that they’re supposed to get. It’s really up to the operator.”

AUTOMATION

The discussion about maintenance and changes in technology led to a question about the future of automation in the laundry industry.

Fairbanks recently toured a textile mill. In one area, there was a long row of machines weaving textiles—with just one man walking up and down these aisles and monitoring the machines.

“I said all the machines, one person?” she says. “He said that back in the day, for each one of these machines, they had an operator.

They had a technician for each one of them. Now, with automation and the processes, they only need one to handle an entire row that once was handled by 20 people.

“As our labor force gets more expensive, as technology becomes more innovative, it can do more for you, are our laundries going to become a dark building with four to five operators running the entire plant, just monitoring the equipment?”

Romeo believes the laundry industry will see increased automation as labor costs go up.

McCauley sees the industry making strides in terms of advanced technology, with a lot more robotics now than has been seen in the past.

“It’s generating typically from Europe because of their high labor rates, but we still are feeding small pieces into folders by hand,” he says. “Let’s take a patient gown that’s three-dimensional. It’s very hard to take something like that and robotically feed the folder.”

Still, McCauley sees it happening in the industry in areas such as the bulk moving of goods. Another area where he sees automation is with sheets and simple corner feeders.

“That’s happening,” he says. “You get down into the smaller pieces and you have more of a problem.”

Doug Story, vice president of corporate support for Gurtler Industries in Germantown, Tenn., and a board member for ALM, describes how the healthcare business, in terms of the socialized countries, has eliminated the need for automation by not using smallpiece folders, as well as flatwork ironers, through government standards.

“They take the stuff that comes out of the tunnel, the cake, it’s post-sort,” he says. “It goes into their post-sort operation, and then it goes into the dryers. They have a person standing at the end of the dryers, they pack it into giant bags, they tie the tops of the bags, they throw it into a cart and they ship it to the hospital. Basically, they eliminate flatwork ironers, folders. It goes back to the hospital and the hospital has to pull it out and

spread it out. Kind of similar to the way folks do it at home.”

Fairbanks says that ALM members have this discussion all the time: Do you fold your fitted sheets or bag them?

“I think when we first started asking that question, 90% were fold,” she says. “Now, it’s going back the other way. The one concern that you have on the cleanlinen side is the human factor. Did they wash their hands? Is their apparel clean? If that’s where our textiles are becoming contaminated, the elimination of touching textiles more and more that shows toward infection prevention and improvement. You may have multiple forces driving this.”

WHAT CAN THE U.S. LEARN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES?

The final topic of discussion was about what laundry operations in the United States can learn from countries overseas.

McCauley says there’s a lot to learn. In Europe, the technology is 20 years ahead of the United States, he says. This is because wage rates are so high, and laundries can’t get rid of an employee, can’t fire them.

“[Employees] either have to die or retire,” he says. [Laundries] are constantly upgrading their auto-

mation so when that person does leave, for whatever reason, they don’t have to replace them.”

As an example, McCauley says laundries in Europe use doubleline ironers. Employees will feed the sheets in lengthwise, two at a time.

“In the U.S., we process probably three times more classifications than a counterpart would in Germany, France, Norway, Sweden,” he says. “It’s not just washing, it’s not just equipment, it’s the textiles. It’s that whole combination. The challenge when we see things in Europe that are automated a certain way, it’s because they’ve standardized. They don’t do COG. They generally only do rental or pool linen. We would have to make other decisions to make these advances possible.”

In the end, the question is what is the laundry industry going to be like 30 years in the future?

“If you tried that here in the States, the first complaint you’re going to get is from the person who makes the bed because now the sheet doesn’t open up anymore. So that is done, forget it, don’t even think about that because of objections,” he says. “There’s a lot to be learned if you ever get the opportunity to get over there.”

Story, however, points out that there are differences between textiles and linens in the United States and in Europe. That affects how those goods can be processed.

How can the industry be involved in best crafting a mechanism to make advances work for laundry processors, for linen distribution and handling, for patient and guest services and their satisfaction? How can the industry make it better and make it work?

“It’s going to take collaborative efforts so we don’t confuse customers with mixed messages, and we have to have evidence that what we are doing is accurate and not just because we think it’s better to do it this way, we feel it’s there, or we believe,” says Fairbanks. “We ought to work from facts and make sure we understand our facts when we go forward.”

ALN

“IN THE U.S., WE PROCESS ... MORE CLASSIFICATIONS THAN A COUNTERPART WOULD [OVERSEAS].”

—ED MCCAULEY, UNITED HOSPITAL SERVICES

(Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

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Hiring good employees from shrinking labor pool Recruiting

find the right talent is going to be critical in determining whether it is successful or not.

BY MATT POE, EDITOR

CHANDLER, Ariz. — In recent years, it’s become more and more difficult to fill technician jobs in laundries.

How can a laundry operation step up its employee recruitment game to identify talent to fill positions and create a winning team?

Jennifer Poage, a consultant from Lexington, Ky., offered insight on these topics during a session called Shrinking Labor Force at the Association for Linen Management (ALM) annual conference here in February.

“I’m convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring the right people,” says Poage. “You can have a great product, great service, great business strategy, but if you don’t have enough of the right

people, you’re not going to be successful.”

She says that, after looking at recruiting numbers in January, employers will have a challenge filling positions through the rest of 2016. That includes the laundry industry.

“It’s interesting in the laundry industry when you look at the unemployment rate,” says Poage. “In October, it was 2.7% and here in January it’s already at 5.1%. It just kind of shows you how things are moving pretty quickly.”

Unemployment in the laundry industry is low, but that doesn’t mean that finding the right people for open jobs is impossible. It will, however, take some effort.

Poage says it is critical that laundry operations take steps to ensure that they are sourcing and screening candidates, because that’s what it takes to select a good candidate. The approach a company takes to

“I want you to think about approaching recruiting like a business approaches a product or a service,” says Poage. “What do I mean by that? First of all, don’t think of it as being in the recruiting business. You’re in the people marketing business. Especially when unemployment is really low. You’ve got to go out there and market and sell your jobs to candidates, and you can’t just do it when you can; you have to consistently do it. If you take this approach, this fundamental shift will help you win at recruiting.”

What does it mean to think of a job as a product or service? First, according to Poage, it means having a profile of the job. A laundry needs to put together—based on research like talking to the individuals in the job or through managing the job, talking to the managers—the elements of the job. These include the responsibilities, the physical requirements, the skills and the required experience.

“The next thing that is very good to do, and will set you apart and help you find the right candidate, is having done a profile of what your top candidates look like in that job today, your top employees,” says Poage.

A top candidate profile is created by looking at individuals who are currently in the job at the company.

“You’re looking at people who are laundry technicians; you’re looking at the high performers,” Poage says. “What previous jobs and experience do those people have? What are their likes and interests? Where do they come from? What were their demographics? Look at people who have been promoted to a higher level. If you can come up with that profile, you’ll know what type of candidate to market to, and you won’t necessarily be spinning your wheels as much.”

So, now a laundry can focus on one recruiting method? Not so fast, says Poage.

“Does Budweiser only do a TV commercial during the Super Bowl? No,” she says. “Because they understand that their target audience is made up of different demographics. They’re going to have to do different things to reach those individuals. If you haven’t, you need to think of recruiting as ‘I have to develop a marketing campaign that has different elements to reach who my target audience is.’

“The one thing I would say is don’t ever rely on one sourcing method, because you’re going to miss a lot of candidates.”

She says companies need to use different methods to reach the different generations of workers—baby boomers, Generation X and millennials.

In terms of media usage, says Poage, 56 million baby boomers listen to radio each week and spend an average of 14.5 hours per week listening to radio. They are dedicated Internet users, but they are still the heaviest newspaper users. For Generation X, 58 million listen to radio each week and spend an average of 14 hours per week listening to radio. For them, Internet usage is part of life, and they get their news and do research online. However, they also rely on word of mouth.

Internet is the media most commonly used by millennials. They text more than any other cellphone user. Typically, they don’t read newspapers, but 65 million listen to radio each week at an average of 11.5 hours per week.

To reach the greatest number of candidates, laundries need to advertise on different media. Also, according to Poage, it’s critical to focus on meeting the candidates’ needs when it comes to marketing the job and the application process.

“We know what our needs are,” she says. “We know on paper what the job is, I know what my profile looks like and I also know that I need somebody who is going to be satisfied in the job.”

It is critical to make it so a candidate can apply on any device. If you can’t apply online using a cellphone, Poage says that a company is missing out on 35% of the applicants that are out there. She acknowledges that sometimes a company can’t go through the whole application process online. In that case, even a simple “text your name and number if interested to this number” that can work, too.

“Then you have a contact and you can call,” she says. “You have to have some way for them to be able to do that on a device.”

You also really have to have “killer” job postings.

“What do I mean by killer job postings? The first thing you’ve got to do is to be sure your job postings have search engine optimization (SEO),” she says.

Why? Because, according to Poage, 89% of candidates that are actively looking for a job go to a search engine to find them. They don’t go straight to CareerBuilder, Snagajob or Indeed. They go to Google, and Google searches on 35 characters.

“If I search for a job in laundry, if the

(Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

post starts out about the company, I won’t find it,” she says. “Right out of the gate, you have that job posting’s title, or whatever that job is. You want to put in that first paragraph what the job is and why would they want to work for you.”

Poage says that job postings that typically garner the most applicants talk about the company at the bottom. At the top, a laundry needs to share how great it is to work at the company, what the job is, what are some of the requirements and then go through what experience is needed, and so on.

A difficulty for the laundry industry is that most job seekers don’t know that the industry is even an option.

“If you know your job isn’t one that somebody is actually going to say, ‘I want to do this job and this job is out there,’ then you put something in there that targets particular demographics,” Poage says. “You also need to make sure you’re marketing, consistently, your company and the jobs that you have available. You have to increase brand awareness.”

Communicating a strong employment branding message is also critical, she says. People want to know what the company’s values are.

“When you communicate employment branding, you get to the people who don’t know that your operator job exists. Or that it might be something they could be successful in and want to do,” says Poage.

She says that employment branding includes language such as the company is always looking for great people, or employ-

ee testimonials. Rather than being about the job or the number of job openings, consistent advertising could say a company has openings because it has a great career path, according to Poage.

Developing a strong community presence is another way laundries can create an employee pipeline, according to Poage.

“It is a more labor-intensive job for you and your managers, but it is very critical that you are working through your community to be able to find good talent. Especially when it comes to entry-level positions,” she says. “You should be sure you are meeting with whatever tech schools you have in the area. If people can work at 16, 17, 18 years old in your area, go to the high schools. Not everybody is going to college right now, and almost every high school has career fairs.”

Poage says that while companies are often looking for a quick fix, if they develop those long-term relationships, over time it certainly is going to benefit the laundry.

“This is also where your ideal candidate profile is really going to help you,” she says. “For example, if you know your employees like to work out, then you would work with the YMCA and some local gyms and publicize there that I have these jobs.”

Finally, it is important that a company spends time engaging its employees.

“A really successful company gets 40% of their applicants from referrals,” Poage says.

She recommends testing a program before implementing it fully. Many companies’ first thought with lower-compensated employees is to offer cash to entice them to

get people to work at the laundry. Not so, says Poage.

“I have found working with different companies for those types of individuals that cash is not a motivator,” she says. “There are a couple reasons. Often when they get that money, it goes to pay bills, or they have a spouse and it comes in the mail or straight into checking and they never see it.”

Contests are what Poage sees as working well. For example, every three months, if an

employee refers someone, and that person gets hired, the employee’s name is placed into a drawing for a big-screen TV or some other gift.

“If you have more than one location, do it at each one,” Poage says. “Make it a big deal. Take their picture.”

Laundries are facing a shortage of good employees. Targeting job marketing at the right people, in the right manner, will help increase successful hiring—and help the laundry to be successful in its business. ALN

(Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

Small-linen automation lowers labor costs, improves quality

BYJ. R. BO U CHARD

QUEBEC CITY — For the past 50 years, Partagec Inc. has collected soiled linen from hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities in the greater Quebec City metropolitan area and returned clean and sorted items.

Partagec launders more than 400,000 pounds per week, which represents 900,000 pieces of linen a week, including sheets, drapes, patient gowns, towels, bibs, diapers and all the other linens utilized by healthcare professionals and patients.

Operating two shifts per day, five days a week out of its 80,000-square-foot facility, Partagec employs 124 full-time and 50 part-time workers.

Partagec’s management and engineering staff began exploring ways to reduce the manual

handling of 600,000 small linens per week, including such items as towels, pillowcases and diapers.

Recently, the laundry installed a first-of-its-kind sorting and automated bagging system that eliminated more than 15,000 hours per year spent in manual handling.

Each time a laundry employee manually handles a clean item, there is a potential risk of bacteria contaminating that item. The automated system reduced manual handling of 600,000 small items per week and lowered contamination risk by 50%, an important consideration for a laundry serving the healthcare industry.

MORE EFFICIENT, SAFER FOR CUSTOMERS

By law, in the Province of Quebec, if you are a public laundry, you cannot sort soiled linen. Partagec’s 165-pound,

18-compartment tunnel washer cleans more than 5,000 pounds of unsorted laundry per hour. Following washing, linens are passed through a press to significantly reduce water content before the laundry reaches a bank of 10 400-pound capacity dryers. Dryer loading is fully automated.

Prior to the new automated sorting and handling system, linen was conveyed from the dryers to a sorting area. All items were sorted into groups and then conveyed to a bagging area. Each of the 900,000 items a week were handled twice—once to sort and once to bag.

“Plant engineer Gaetan Saulnier and I calculated that there were 600,000 small linens sorted per week,” says Martin Dubeau, Partagec plant manager. “We thought that the small items, which are easier to handle than the larger ones, might lend themselves to being automatically bagged. If we could find a system to do that, we would reduce handling by 50%. At 600,000 small pieces per week, a 50% reduction

in handling would lead to a significant reduction in labor.”

Dubeau was impressed with the solutions offered by Rennco, a division of Pro Mach, located in Homer, Mich. Rennco specializes in bagging technology in the laundry industry.

Dubeau discussed the idea of reducing handling of small items with Rennco’s Bob Jolliff, international sales manager. Jolliff recommended the company’s Vertic L-PP high-capacity dual bagger, which features two loading stations.

The capability of forming two bags at the same time could meet the requirement of 600,000 pieces of linen packed into 2,200 bags per day. The Vertic L-PP costeffectively forms bags from roll film and makes bags of various sizes both small and large as needed, an essential capability for the mixed flow of linens at Partagec.

“The volume and speed of bagging, the mixed flow, and the machine-to-machine integration required were no small technological feats,” says Jolliff. “The

project demanded not only integration expertise, but also large helpings of creativity in the design of the system and a real willingness to listen and work closely with Partagec.”

To meet province-specified bid requirements, Rennco became a supplier to a Quebec-based integrator that would then manage the project.

A NEW WORKFLOW

In the sorting and bagging workflow developed for this project, clean and dry linen travels from the bank of dryers to the sorting area, where only the large items are removed.

The untouched small items continue via conveyor and are automatically emptied into large laundry bags called slings. The slings travel by overhead conveyor to a holding area where they are held until a space opens up on conveyors feeding the newly designed small-item sorting tables.

The small-item sorting tables are horseshoe-shaped with an

ITR A hosts successful mid-year training conference

BY MATT PO E, E DITOR

OAK BROOK, Ill. — The Independent Textile Rental Association (ITRA) hosted its 2016 Mid-Year Training Conference & Supplier Exhibits here in midApril.

“I am not sure what was more impressive: the record attendance, the weather Chicago offered us in April or the amount of information we were able to pack into one and a half days,” says Tom Heilman, president of ITRA and general manager of Ace ImageWear in Beaumont, Texas.

The conference included supplier exhibits, a full day of education and tours of two textile rental facilities.

Before the official start of the conference, 40 members, including a few board and committee members, spent Saturday evening, April 16, at an optional, paid

event, enjoying a few laughs at The Second City Comedy Club. The next morning, committees and the board met to take care of association business.

Most attendees arrived at the Doubletree by Hilton by Sunday evening for a reception and a chance to explore supplier exhibits. More than 40 suppliers set up in the hotel’s Grand Ballroom. ITRA operator members spent the evening meeting with company representatives over appetizers and drinks.

“I met a lot of new vendors and operators at the exhibit reception,” Heilman says.

Before the educational sessions kicked off Monday morning, ITRA announced that it had awarded its $2,500 scholarship, which is given to an employee or immediate family member of an employee of an ITRA operator member, to Heather Homola. Homola, who

attends Westchester University in Pennsylvania, is the daughter of an employee at Health Mats in Chester, Pa.

During the first session, a panel of industry experts discussed best practices in procurement for the industry. This was followed by insights into the investment value of preventative maintenance, which was led by Prudential Overall Supply’s Stefan Schurter, first vice president of ITRA.

Chuck Smith, president of NewHire, took attendees through six steps to be successful at hiring new employees.

The education then went in the direction of route and service management techniques, followed by ways to foster customer service.

Marc O’Leary of Prudential Overall Supply led the two-part session.

The day’s agenda wrapped with ideas for sales contests to motivate and energize employees, present-

ed by Samantha Lesniak and Jeff DeLazzer from The Roscoe Co.

“This was the first time we’ve attended an ITRA event, since it’s in the Chicago area,” says Jacqueline Ahasic from Valley Linen Service. “It’s been very good. It’s good to meet with vendors, and I’m learning a lot.”

The conference concluded Tuesday morning with tours of Chicago-area Alsco and Roscoe Co. plants.

ITRA’s 2016 Annual Convention is scheduled for Oct. 2-4 at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Ariz. Visit www.itra.us for more details.

ALN

ITRA says many new faces attended the Mid-Year Training, and they had a chance to meet and converse in the exhbit hall.

(Photos: Matt Poe)

ITRA President Tom Heilman welcomes attendees to a day of education.

ITRA Mid-Year Training attendees, close to 130, took part in five educational sessions led by various association member experts and consultants.

Operator members of ITRA meet with vendors to talk business during the Supplier Exhibits and Reception.

Fourth-generation laundry chooses rebuilt flatwork ironers

COURTLAND, N.Y. — When Johanna Ames, president of Ames Linen Service here in Courtland, needed more ironing capacity to accommodate growth at her fourth-generation, family-operated laundry, she compared the latest technology in large-diameter flatwork ironers to rebuilt American flatwork ironers and chose the rebuilt ironers—three of them, in fact.

The ironers were originally manufactured nearly 50 years ago by American Laundry Machinery Inc. and remanufactured by Tingue.

operator in the center. As linen comes off the small-item conveyor, the operator sorts the linen by dropping each piece into a designated hole and chute in the tabletop. There are 10 holes and chutes, with each corresponding to one of 10 different types of small linen.

When linen in each chute reaches a specified item count, which is calculated by weight, a gate opens and the accumulated linen falls into a 4-foot section of a bagging conveyor.

The automated system can regulate the movement of the conveyor to ensure an empty 4-foot section is beneath a chute before a gate opens, identify the type of linen in each section of conveyor, and communicate with the Vertic L-PP, identifying section location and contents.

When a conveyor section drops sorted linen onto the loading belt, the machine forms the correct length bag for that set of items. The entire post-sort materialhandling and bagging process is automatic. Bagged linen is distributed via tractor-trailer truck to Partagec customers.

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF THE NEW SYSTEM

Prior to the new system, Partagec used fairly expensive reusable mesh bags that had to be returned and washed along with the linen. Making bags out of rolls of film is far more costeffective in terms of material and handling. Furthermore, the new poly film bags are made from recycled plastic. And after use, the bags can be recycled again.

With some of the funds saved through less handling, Partagec purchased a film compactor and collects and recycles film from facilities that do not have their own recycling programs. Reduced packaging waste reduces the burden on local landfills.

“The Province of Quebec, like many others, desires to improve healthcare and reduce ancillary costs,” says Dubeau. “With our automated sorting and bagging system, Partagec has contributed to that provincial effort.” ALN

J. R. Bouchard is president, AT Packaging, in Montreal, Quebec

“I was not convinced that I could put out finished table linens at the quality level I desired from a big roll ironer,” says Ames. “I looked at other ironers but they just couldn’t beat the finish quality of these Americans.”

Ames Linen Service processes 200,000 pounds of linens per week, including 100,000 pounds of food and beverage linens.

To achieve this level of finish quality, the aging ironers are remanufactured in a painstaking process aimed at restoring the ironer to OEM specifications.

The process includes dismantling the

ironer piece by piece, inspecting and cleaning each part, repairing or machining new parts as needed and adding from a menu of modern upgrades, if desired. When put back together, the rebuilt flatwork ironer performs as specified for many years at a fraction of the cost of other flatwork ironers.

“They tore down the ironer, rigged it to my plant, cleaned it and completed a total rebuild right on site over a three-day weekend,” says Ames. “Now, you can barely hear the ironer run, its finish quality is impeccable, and I don’t worry about downtime.”

UPGRADE

ALN

Johanna Ames, president of Ames Linen, shows off a rebuilt American flatwork ironer. (Photo: Ames Linen)

PANEL OF EXPERTS

Communicating effectively for success

specific to the customer and their issues.

Engage the production team with the “jeopardy” accounts that are experiencing problems with product quality that your production team can positively impact.

The key word in this question is “effective.” It starts with communicating the mission and vision statement for the organization, which ultimately is the “what,” both internally and externally. The detailed communication to your team around the “how” is imperative to reaching company goals.

Having worked closely with business executives in our industry and Fortune 500 companies outside of our industry, there are many considerations and best practices. Since it’s such a massive topic, I’ll mostly highlight a few internal communication ideas within production, sales and service:

Have your production manager and supervisors go on routes on a regular basis to improve communication between service and production. The production management team will hear performance results firsthand from the customer. It assists the two teams to get on the same page with facts rather than conjecture.

2. Sales Communication needs to be motivating, engaging and positive for the sales team. Individually, communication needs to be specific and accountable. Praise in public and reprimand in private. This is critical for sales reps because of how they’re “wired.”

Don’t only post results and expect it to motivate a sales rep; it needs to also be communicated verbally. Tailor communication to be something motivational with broader goals and impacts. “Connect the dots” between their efforts and what it means for the overall business.

1. Production

Be very specific, narrow and timely. We improved our production efficiency in a start-up organization by 61% through a method that Target stores had used for many years. We held five-minute shift start-up team meetings by functional group to review the previous day’s productivity results, weekly trends and what the upcoming workload looked like for the upcoming shift. It aligned management goals and expectations with the production team members.

Any time you can have direct customer feedback (positive or negative), related to product quality, let the people on the front lines know about it. Be

3. Service Over-communication is the key, with so many moving parts in our unique industry. Weekly service team meetings are the best practice seen in higher-functioning organizations. We’ve seen the positive impacts of holding weekly meetings, over and over again. Think of ways to make it happen and eliminate the reasons not to. Make sure the content is engaging, and let the route reps primarily lead the meeting, not management.

If you’re currently not holding daily one-on-one meetings with your route reps, once started, it will improve results faster than virtually any other activity you can deploy. It’s the most productive 10-15 minutes that a manager can spend with his or her route rep.

A comprehensive customer research study surprisingly showed that a scheduled and effective management visit with larger major accounts was the No. 1 activity to improve customer loyalty. These customers didn’t ask for it, however, so when they received it, it made the biggest impact on customer loyalty scores.

Over the years, our consulting team has seen a variety of communication methods. They range from extremely effective methods to communication techniques that are detrimental to the business. We encourage the power of improved communication and how it can positively impact the financial results. The results have usually been immediate. Though it can be challenging, if done correctly, it can significantly boost both growth and profit results.

Communication is a huge part of making sure things run smoothly within our laundry department. We use several different ways to communicate with one another throughout our workday.

Our facility linens are processed off-site, and we need to place our order daily for our linen delivery. We rely on the fax machine to send our daily needs list and rely on the person receiving the fax at the other end to process it correctly. A safeguard is in place

in case the fax is not received to prevent us from missing a delivery.

We are able to communicate effectively by knowing exactly who to contact when things do not go as they should. Knowing who to call to get it straightened out really reduces our workload and time spent trying to get issues resolved.

Within our facility, we rely on our phone and voicemail, and we keep a log of calls, if followup is required, so that we can ensure smooth operations. The associates we work with within our facility know that the phone is the best way to reach our laundry associates. Call logs can be reviewed to see what needs to be done; this also gives us the ability to look for trending as well. Communicating within the department is important.

Knowing your audience is

“I’ve attended webinars and have read pieces on communication styles and effective methods. I’d like to improve communication at my laundry, internally and externally. What advice do you have? What’s been effective for your business?”

(Image licensed by Ingram Publishing)

Consulting Services

Chris Mayer Performance Matters, Plymouth, Minn.

important. When communicating, do not use terms that people will not understand. Keeping the message simple and to the point makes it much easier to know what is expected. We are constantly working on better ways to stay in contact with those who need us. Our facility recently moved to text pagers. The message is displayed on the pager, saving us time and helping us get exactly what is needed.

When important information needs to be communicated, we use memos. We have associates read the memo and offer copies of it to reference and have a signoff sheet to ensure that everyone got the same message and knows the information we are sharing.

Textiles

Postings within the department are another way to get messages out to all who work in the area. Making them clear and concise gets the message out about what is expected. Giving people simple but effective ways to communicate makes it easier for us to keep doing what we need to be doing. At the end of the day, our goal is to make sure our patients and residents have exactly what they need.

Communication is the basis of all culture. The business world talks about culture all the time, never really touching on what needs to be developed, taught, exampled and managed —which is, in fact, the communication process.

We have customers. Some are internal associates, and some are external trading partners. Successful cultures have a common language that starts from the inside out, is led from the top and is based in the “heart of house”—those folks who do the work day in and day out. From that “inside” language, a company can build a common culture, whatever the mission. From the ground up or the top down, you all have to believe and be able to state the same goals. Once the language is in place, efficiencies in your company will take wing. Start with what you are

delivering. Is it a product or service? Neither. It’s a customer experience—better said, a quality customer experience. So, put a language to the mission. Customer experience = quality + value-added + enumeration + perception. If you can manage these keywords in your language, and get everyone in the organization headed in the same direction, then every conversation regarding your products and services (and all the support around them) should be centered in your “corporate language.”

Let’s look at these four keywords:

Quality: While companies set standards for products and services, they must understand, accept and embrace the fact that it is the external trading partners who are the ones who set the acceptable standards. Once a company clearly understands market standards, and where they are in comparison, they must accept the fact that quality expectations will always shift, expand, and heighten (and never diminish).

Value-Added: People buy things for what they do, not

Open Helicoid Cylinder Design

Enhances the wash pie by providing mechanical action consistent with that of an open pocket washer without the limitations imposed by transfer scoops or an archimedean design.

Safety

Monoshell helicoid provides for a large transfer opening and the unique friction drive system eliminates the need for access hatches and operator entry into the processing vessel. Braun also provides patent pending chute loading dryers.

Energy

Our standard systems afford the ability to support low and high temperature chemistries with limited energy consumption. We also offer a steam generator package to avoid the costs associated with boiler rooms and stationary engineers. As a full line dryer manufacturer we offer industry leading production and energy efficiency while optimizing the use of facility space.

Water Efficiency

Exceptional wash pie balance associated with these solutions allow for low water consumption (.4 to .7 gallons/lb., depending on soil type), while affording extremely low rewash rates (2% or less). This is not only efficient, but it improves linen life. All water used in the process is reused at least three times in the process!

Hygiene

The unique combination of material science and the monoshell design enhance system resistance to microbial/bacteria growth. All process piping is stainless steel and this system avoids double drum stagnant surfaces.

Reliability

Braun has been supplying tunnel system solutions to the industry for well over 35 years, and does so providing easy to use, heavy duty equipment that “stands the test of time”. We also provide the most comprehensive post sale support system to insure that our clients maximize performance and equipment longevity.

For more details on the proven Science of Braun’s unique features and functionality, go to www.gabraun.com/science

Steve Kallenbach

ADI American Dawn, Los Angeles, Calif.

what they are. Companies that understand this concept focus on differentiating their products and services with all the special little extras that offer additional “benefit.” In the absence of these value-added differentiators, customers will only rely on price comparison—just like employees will only rely on salary comparison. Go value-added and teach

your people to look for this attribute in everything they do, both for your customers and for each other.

Enumeration: Bottom line, if you do something for someone (internal or external customer), and if you don’t somehow tell them, in many cases you simply haven’t done it. Your associates need to look at this in every communication and not leave the perception open. This closes communication threads in a definite and positive way.

Perception: Relationships are won and lost on this word— possibly the hardest word in

the English language. We must manage perceptions in our communication. That is to say, if you have a quality product or service

that performs or outperforms your competitors, then you must discover or develop the valueadded, be able to communicate (enumerate) it and then manage the perception of the receiver to make sure your understandings match.

Improving communication is about culture. Culture is based in a common language. The next time you have any business issue, ask these four questions of your team.

1. What did we do in comparison to what our external market or internal audience expected as standard?

2. What have we done “extra” (with or without cost) that makes what we did more valuable?

3. Did we specify and explain exactly what we did in steps 1 and 2 above?

4. What is the audience’s perception of steps 1, 2 and 3 above, and how does that compare with what we thought we did?

Use this communication process in your work, your home, your neighborhood or wherever people communicate. Bring the language of customer experience to the table consistently, and you’ll see your company thrive in employee satisfaction and customer retention. And finally, make sure that every person in your organization understands this language. Start all your meetings with this overview. Understand it. Speak it. Write it. Show it. Live it. Thrive.

A

bove all else, be honest! When things are going well, all too often we forget to thank the people who are responsible. On the other hand, however, we rarely forget to comment or reprimand the responsible parties for their mistakes.

The definition of communication is “The imparting or exchanging of information or news.” This implies a two-way discussion.

I believe that it is imperative to find a balance between keeping an open mind and honestly listening to what people are saying, or taking the position that you are right and therefore the other party must be wrong.

I find that attempting to maintain an even balance between talking and listening can provide quite acceptable results most of the time.

I believe that we all try to surround ourselves with the most qualified and professional people possible. That being the case, keep an open mind, make your point but be willing to admit

that you are not always right. ALN

“IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE, AND IF YOU DON’T SOMEHOW TELL THEM, IN MANY CASES YOU SIMPLY HAVEN’T DONE IT.”

—STEVE KALLENBACH, ADI ADMERICAN DAWN

Commercial Laundry

Rick Rone

Laundry Plus, Bradenton, Fla.

“...KEEP AN OPEN MIND, MAKE YOUR POINT BUT BE WILLING TO ADMIT THAT YOU ARE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT.”

—RICK RONE, LAUNDRY PLUS

Largest expansion in Alliance Laundry Systems history

begin this summer

RIPON, Wis. — The Board of Directors for global commercial laundry equipment provider Alliance Laundry Systems has formally approved a proposed $62.6 million expansion to its campus here.

Investment incentives from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), Fond du Lac County through the Fond du Lac County Economic Development Corporation (FCEDC), and the City of Ripon have been finalized, clearing the way for the expansion to move forward.

The project will add 225,000 square feet of new buildings, including the construction of a new North America Sales and Marketing Headquarters and the conversion of an existing warehouse into a manufacturing facility.

It is estimated that the project will add 200 new permanent jobs to the local workforce.

“Alliance Laundry Systems has been headquartered here in Ripon for more than a hundred years,” says Mike Schoeb, Alliance president and CEO. “During that time, we have developed a tremendous partnership with both Fond du Lac County and the State of Wisconsin. Those partnerships have allowed us to continue to invest in growing our business and keeping our workforce in Wisconsin. This expansion is another demonstration of our mutual commitment to our employees and the local community.”

Alliance Laundry Systems designs, manufactures and markets commercial laundry equipment under the brand names Huebsch®, IPSO®, Primus®, Speed Queen® and UniMac®, among others.

This expansion will be the single largest capacity-related investment in the company’s history and will ensure its continued ability to meet demand for its laundry equipment. This is a much broader undertaking than previous expansions and will increase capacity across all brands and models, Alliance says.

The new North America Sales and Marketing Headquarters will feature state-of-the art conference facilities and a digital showroom, and will provide a premium destination for current and potential Alliance customers.

“We are thrilled to provide support for this expansion project to help Alliance Laundry Systems increase their Wisconsin footprint,” says Mark Hogan, secretary and CEO of WEDC. “Their continued success and ongoing commitment to grow its operations

“Alliance has been a key com-

ponent of the County’s robust and growing economy,” says Allen Buechel, Fond du Lac County executive. “The company’s latest expansion will significantly advance both the local and regional economies.”

“This third expansion will have a tremendous economic impact and indicates that Fond du Lac

is a great place to do business,” says Steve Jenkins, president of the FCEDC. “Alliance Laundry Systems is a great company productively employing residents of the County and region but also contributing in many other ways to the well-being of the community.”

The new jobs generated by

this expansion will include all aspects of manufacturing, including assembly, fabrication, welding, engineering, supervision and maintenance, as well as increases in salaried positions.

Alliance says groundbreaking is expected to take place this summer. ALN

Formulated

and create jobs here are proof positive of Wisconsin’s strong business climate and responsive economic development network.”

Where’s the one place in the United States where laundry manufacturers, suppliers, managers and operators can come together to check out the latest products, services and more?

Yes, it’s usually at the Clean Show, but Clean only takes place every other year.

Laundry industry professionals like you can tour a “show floor” here this year in the pages of American Laundry News—the Exhibit in Print!

Call it a “trade show you can fit in your briefcase.” Or a “trade show that won’t hurt your feet.”

The Exhibit in Print is set up so that you can take a seat, maybe even kick back and put your feet up, and tour the trade show floor from the comfort of your own desk.

The “booth” articles have been submitted by the exhibiting companies. Any claims made in Exhibit in Print are those of the participating companies, not American Laundry News.

Let’s visit the Exhibit in Print floor!

G.A. Braun

G.A. Braun’s 300 PBS Side-ByDryers are made for the batch tunnel processing environment. In a sideby-side configuration, no space is required between the dryers. All dryers are identical, and there are no leftor right-hand requirements because of the unique side-by-side design, the company says.

The dryers can be installed together endlessly, unlike other machines

tunnel system. The patented link collection system allows for exceptional performance, airflow optimization and a better utilization of available space within the facility, Braun says.

Clients have reported a 40% increase in production and a 12% increase in energy efficiency when compared to previous generations of machines.

Tecni-Quip

Tecni-Quip’s stainless steel or anodized aluminum convertible Round Tripper carts are the ultimate protection for clean linen traveling from laundries to healthcare facilities, the company says. Laundries seeking Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC) certification or wanting to offer better “safe linen” procedures to capture additional business will benefit from these carts.

Known as the “surgical suite standard,” stainless reduces the risk of infections caused by bacteria such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile (C. diff). The metal’s hardened and superior tight-knit molecular structure prevents bacteria from penetrating into its surface; clean welds and joints assure a smooth interior that will not harbor bacteria.

Sanitizing is extremely easy. Surfaces can be

wiped down with any hospital-grade disinfectant. Steam and other detergents may be used. Cart washers will not disturb the structural integrity of these models and, be assured, the company says, they will never rust.

Models are available in standard sizes, and the Tecni-Quip team can assist in custom design and manufacturing to meet your needs 100%. Many options and upgrades, such as stainless casters and precision-sealed ball bearings, will enhance the performance in cart washers.

www.tqind.com | 800-826-1245

that require installation in pairs. This configuration greatly enhances space utilization, minimizes the amount of spare parts needed and enhances productivity and efficiency within a

Additionally, the machine has been designed with a patent-pending chuteloading option. The static chute on the front of each machine allows for seamless integration with a rail system, improves turn times and eliminates moving parts and maintenance costs inherent with the use of cross conveyors for dryer loading—all of which helps improve overall plant efficiency in a multipletunnel location and in a cost-effective manner.

www.gabraun.com | 800-432-7286

Pariser Industries Inc.

Founded in 1971, Pariser Industries says it is a leader in providing specialty chemicals to today’s industrial and institutional market, offering premium-quality detergents and cleaning agents directly to the customer through its sales force and its distribution network. The third generation of the company looks ahead into the 21st century, while maintaining Pariser’s founding principles of service, quality and value.

Pariser Industries manufactures a complete line of liquid and powder products for myriad washing and cleaning applications. From top loaders to tunnel washers, hospitality to healthcare or from shirt laundries, fire restoration or wet cleaning, to professional athletic teams, Pariser is passionate about delivering world-class products, competent technical service, extraordinary customer satisfaction and value.

Pariser provides:

• Consultation, overview and training in operator

G.S. Manufacturing

The G360-BD linen cart from G.S. Manufacturing is built with the same robust strength and durability that the company’s customers have come to depend on, while maintaining its ergonomically and fuel-friendly low cart weight, the company says.

The new G360 back-door cart allows staff to gain access to the soiled-return linen through the back of the cart. The 31-inch

safety, production, linen handling and replacement costs, with technical service in more than 30 states and the Caribbean.

• No-obligation operational survey analyses.

• Laboratory and field analysis.

• Affiliations with DLI (Drycleaning & Laundry Institute), TCATA (Textile Care Allied Trades Association) and TRSA (Textile Rental Services Association)

Pariser brings the intimacy of a family business to the business of customer service.

www.pariserchem.com | 800-370-7627

door swings a full 180 degrees to the open position, and is held in place by a magnetic catch. The door is secured in the closed position with two springloaded slide bolts.

The back door offers a clear ergonomic advantage by allowing the staff unrestricted access to the soiledlinen bags. With greater access, the job is easier and staff members are allowed to work within their personal ergonomic safe zone.

www.gsm-cart.com | 800-363-2278

Energenics Corp.

There is increasing pressure for laundries to meet operating standards set by independent associations such as those published by the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC) and the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA). These organizations outline process monitoring and sanitation standards. The guidelines specifically require carts transporting soiled linen to be cleaned and disinfected prior to transporting clean linen. Cleaning requires chemicals and water, and possibly steam. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) specifies some hospital-grade detergent, disinfectants commonly supplied by the laundry operation’s chemical supplier.

Large hospital laundry operations are faced with operating requirements to meet the disinfection requirements. The number of carts required to be cleaned per hour dictates the process. Other factors of water usage and chemical consumption affect the cleaning operation.

Several equipment manufacturers provide machines that automatically disinfect the carts that meet the association requirements.

Energenics’ solution to achieve the cleaning process:

• The Energenics Kartwasher is designed to minimize water and chemical usage to less than 3 gallons of water and diluted chemicals per cart.

• Its Kartwashers can process from 25 carts (Premier) to more than 50 carts per hour with its (Fully Automatic Double) Kartwasher, through the complete wash and dry cycle.

• Many detergent, disinfectant chemicals require a multi-minute “dwell” time to cure to the satisfactory level of sanitation.

Energenics has incorporated extra programmable cycles to meet and exceed the “dwell” time requirements.

• Finally, Energenics says it has perfected the addition of hospitalfavored UV light to the drying and sanitizing process, additional assurance in the elimination of bacteria.

www.energenics.com | 800-944-1711

Pellerin Milnor Corp.

Pellerin Milnor Corp. now offers the industrial M-Series washer-extractor line, which includes the 48040 M7K (capacity of 42 cubic feet), 68036 M5K (75.6 cubic feet) and 72046 M5K (108.4 cubic feet).

The series’ unique features include the innovative SmoothCoil™ suspension system; 21-degree, two-way tilting for efficient loading and unloading; intelligent bearing design; open machine design for easy access and streamlined maintenance; and intuitive MilTouch-EX™ touch-

screen control.

The M-Series washer-extractors also feature an optional integrated load-chute door for automated washer-extractor systems. A safety-rated light curtain for nonautomated M-Series washers allows for safe visual inspection while operating. www.milnor.com | 504-712-7656

American Dryer

The ADC EcoWash Washer lineup offers hotel owners and operators reliable and efficient washers in both rigid- and soft-mount configurations, according to American Dryer. With final spin speeds up to 350 G-force, there is a washer to meet any on-premises laundry need.

Rigid-Mount Washers, which spin out at 100 and 200 G-force, are available in 25-, 30-, 40-, 60- and 80-pound capacities, and the Soft-Mount Washers (350 G-force) come in 25-, 30-, 40- and 60-pound models.

The washers feature a cast-aluminum counterweight along with an imbalance detection system that provide maximum stability and gentler movement. The washers come equipped with seven external chemicalinjection ports and a stainless-steel cabinet

that adds to the units’ longevity. The durable ergonomic design of the door handle, combined with the brand’s Easy Lock door lock, provides convenience and safety. All EcoWash washers feature a standard quick disconnect for immediate power shutoff to the washer.

The American Dryer Intuitive Micro Controls are customizable and easy to program, the company says. All American Dryer Soft-Mount Washers come standard with a three-year limited parts warranty and a fiveyear limited warranty, which includes outer shell, drum, shaft assembly, inner-welded frame and bearing and seals.

www.adclaundry.com | 508-678-9000

Monarch Brands

Monarch Brands’ routeready bar mops help laundry managers alleviate capacity constraints and boost costeffective operations, the company says.

The company’s product saves laundries the time and expense of pre-washing and counting out new bar mops before their “first route.” Typically, laundries save at least 70 cents per dozen in washing and packing expense alone, Monarch says.

However, it’s the intangible benefits of route-ready bar mops that are priceless, it adds. By freeing washroom and finishing floor operators from a whole wash cycle, laundries gain production time to focus on other inefficiencies.

Monarch Brands’ route-ready bar mops are

soft-packed, optically white and prepacked in bundles of 25 each, so they fly from delivery to route. Color options are available to help prevent crosscontamination.

Add a laundry’s logo to the route-ready bar mops, and benefit from ultimate control over inventory. When surprisingly low minimums are met, the company will help promote a brand 24/7 with complimentary label embroidery. Monarch Brands also provides complimentary private labeling for microfiber and terry towel products.

www.monarchbrands.com | 800-333-7247

Girbau Industrial

Leonard Automatics

Leonard Automatics has always been known for its Steam Tunnel Finishers, the company says. Steam tunnels are excellent for removing moisture and wrinkles while the garment is on a hanger. Steam tunnels save drying requirements, reduce utility costs, reduce the need to press the entire garment, save labor and can increase throughput, Leonard says. These benefits combined provide an excellent return on investment.

What laundry professionals may not know is that Leonard also has a complete line of pressing and automated finishing equipment for every garment finishing need. When a customer buys a Leonard press, they not only get a rugged machine built to last, but also cost-saving, durable features that typically come as an option on most other brands, the company says.

These enhancements include rugged steel frames, two aluminum cylinders for head closing and controlled squeeze pressure, an insulated head for operator comfort and

energy conservation, stainless-steel table tops, two button closing and lock, hardened shaft needle bearings and a fabric-covered grid plate, to name some.

The company’s full line of presses includes steam and hot head presses as well as airoperated and manually operated drive systems. And Leonard presses are competitively priced compared to other machines, it adds.

Contact Leonard to see how its finishing equipment can help improve quality and reduce direct labor to help your business prosper.

www.leonardautomatics.com | 704-483-9316

Girbau Industrial engineers industrial laundry systems for commercial and industrial laundry clients throughout North America. Each piece of Girbau Industrial equipment is precisely designed to heighten laundry efficiency and productivity, while reducing labor, the company says.

Girbau Industrial provides a robust product offering, including large-capacity washer-extractors and drying tumblers, high-volume flatwork ironers, continuous batch tunnel washing systems, presses, feeders, folders, conveyor systems and related system machinery.

The Girbau Industrial Continuous Batch Washing System—designed to process more than 3,000 laundry pounds per hour— includes the TBS-50 Batch Tunnel Washer, SPR-50 Press, ST-1302 or ST-100 Dryers with vacuum load, and an automated conveyor system. Working in concert, each element of the system is precisely controlled by a central touch-screen control.

Girbau Industrial serves the complete laundry production and efficiency needs of virtually any laundry application. Proven durable and reliable, Girbau Industrial laundry systems are in place at hospitals, hotels, casinos,

resorts, drycleaning plants and commercial laundries across North America.

Girbau Industrial distributors provide customers with expert recommendations for improving laundry productivity and efficiency, including laundry design and operational studies; equipment sizing, selection and installation; flexible financing; and service after the sale.

www.girbauindustrial.com | 800-256-1073

Consolidated Laundry Machinery

Combining

The company, which has been in business for more than 50 years, features a range of technology, including a fully integrated production management system.

CLM’s broad line of industrial dryers ranges in capacity from 250 pounds to 1,200 pounds dry weight, including the popular Model 165.

The entire line of dryers includes features such as upgraded heat systems with improved efficiency and lower emissions; Micro-Command III programmable logic controller upgrade with LAN and Bluetooth com-

munications; a PLC for flow process management systems; two-stage, variable-speed basket drive with three-port load door; and a “soft start” to reduce component wear and to lower utility use. Heavy-gauge baskets, including removable steel basket panels, are available with long-lasting ceramic coating.

All units are available with configurable exhaust and control/burner locations, the company says.

CLM also offers on-site dryer upgrading and refurbishing, including PLC conversions, which can significantly improve dryer efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

www.clmco.com | 323-232-2417

U.N.X. Inc.

Since 1958, U.N.X. Inc. has formulated the finest and most innovative laundry chemicals for all the markets it serves, the company says.

U.N.X. says it was the first in the industry to make extensive use of new surfactant technology, and introduced the first successful heavy-duty enzyme products, and it adds that it is a proven leader in the development of new products for the laundry industry.

Selling and satisfying laundry and institutional customers are the company’s primary objectives. Long field experience and technical know-how

enable its research laboratory to formulate new and better products in order to arrive at custom solutions to meet the needs of its customers.

U.N.X. says it represents stability, independence, integrity and security. The company says its territory managers persist in “finding a better way” and involve themselves beyond the role of supplying chemical specialties to their customers. The managers are experts in the technology of the laundry industry, and by concentrating on their specific areas of expertise, they are able to provide the quality assistance their customers demand.

Complete customer satisfaction is the goal of the territory managers. U.N.X. says it is a company whose people provide hometown service with national support. The company knows that its reputation and future depend on the quality of personal service provided to the customer. Therefore, U.N.X. trains and develops territory managers into the most capable technicians available.

Professional service, proven cleaning formulations and state-of-the-art dispensing systems have built a solid reputation for U.N.X. www.unxinc.com | 252-756-8616

Davis Packaging

Whether an operation is large or small, protecting its cleaned inventory from loss, contamination and spills is a must for both the company’s image and bottom line.

For more than 37 years, Davis Packaging has provided professional, affordable stretch- and shrink-laundrywrapping equipment, replacement parts and films tailored to laundry operations of all sizes, the company says.

From compact mini bundlers to commercial dual-roll consoles, Davis Packaging wrappers have set the industry standard for cost-effective, fully enclosed, heat-sealed laundry packaging. Davis systems enable operators to control contamination,

minimize wasteful rewashing and speed up delivery. The company says its easy wrap systems protect clean, folded linens in clear, fully sealed, durable packages to protect linen investment, ensure contents remain secure and clean during transport, and provide easy identification of content at pickup, delivery and storage. How a laundry packages and presents its product reflects how

customers judge the overall quality of the service, according to the company. Davis Packaging laundry wrappers and films give peace of mind that deliverables are protected from loss, contamination and spillage from dryer to delivery.

Visit the company’s website or e-mail for parts for Davis or other wrappers, view videos of its most popular laundry wrapping systems or call representatives to discuss how the company can help maximize laundry operations and minimize expense.

www.davispackaging.net | 800-622-3015

• Assist with compliance to OSHA directive CPL 03-00-008 combustible dust explosions and fires act of 2008.

• Superior HP maximizes the lint suction in the production area.

• Arrives completely assembled, ready to hang, plug in and start collecting lint.

• No need to blow it around.

• Upward exhaust pulls lint, dust and hot air away from associates, expensive equipment and controls.

• Available with bacteria killing UV light for soiled or contaminated lint.

Chicago Dryer Co.

Designed for high-speed, high-production healthcare work, Edge Maxx from Chicago Dryer Co. is the perfect mix of performance and simplicity. Designed to amplify the productivity of laundry personnel, up to three operators can produce as much linen every hour as the fastest available four-station feeder that requires four or more operators to do the same work, the company says.

It can work efficiently with as many as three operators or as few as one, depending on the condition of work being processed and quantity required. Using comfortable, yet spaceefficient, lateral separation of high-speed input conveyors, each operator effectively has his/her own Edge to work with. Faster speed capability and 70% more storage capacity allow even the best operators to have fewer limitations and zero wait time, Chicago® says. An automatic floor return reject

system brings misfed items back to front and center for convenient removal.

The Edge Maxx laundry feeder can also be used with a Cascade linen separator and LinenStream distribution conveyor to further streamline and speed up the finishing process.

The newest Maxx version offers a three-station, highoutput model for even greater throughput, as well as individual production tracking by operator.

Both models are controlled by the CHI•Touch (CT) PC control operating system, offering the most complete package of intelligent machine controls, allowing machine parameters to be automatically maximized to suit production needs and linen characteristics, Chicago® says. CHI•Touch offers the industry’s largest PC-based, full-color touch-screen

Lavatec Laundry Technology

One reason why Lavatec Laundry Technology is an industry leader is that it manufactures the largest range of durable and reliable equipment for the commercial laundry equipment market, the company says. Lavatec has three LX-series large-capacity front-loading washer-extractors that are the right choice for specific fabric washing needs or small-scale operations.

The Open Pocket LX425 (250 pounds capacity), LX445 (450 pounds) and LX460 (600 pounds) are built to perform for many years, and the LX series has a computerized system with touch-screen management. The simple design controls time and temperature, level, dosing, drum speed, reversing and cooldown aspects. It also provides the option to operate as an automated system, or can be adjusted and controlled manually.

A single inverter-controlled drive motor applies reserve power during wash and spin

cycles for the lowest energy consumption at any speed. When combined with high extraction rates, costs can be lowered via reduced drying times.

Lavatec says it is the only company that provides both bottom- or center-transfer systems for continuous tunnel washers. These machines produce maximum efficiency and come in a variety of sizes between 55 and 220 pounds and six to 18 modules, giving options to choose the right size system to meet laundry demands with high performance for many years. New technology focuses on energy efficiency, with water consumption as low as 0.35 gallons per pound of washed linen, the company says.

Lavatec tunnel washers can be customized for any client’s needs, including standing baths, counterflow and multiple drains.

www.LLTUSA.com | 203-632-8777

EDRO Corp.

control and is easy to learn and use by operators, engineering and management personnel, the company adds. Multiple languages are also available.

www.chidry.com | 773-235-4430

EDRO’s ESL400, a 450-poundcapacity side-loader washer-extractor features a two-pocket, stainless-steel cylinder with a full-width door opening (for gravity-assisted loading/unloading) and 180-degree, open-drop design for excellent mechanical wash action, the company says. The cylinder door features effortless operating hardware securely fastened in machined pistons and bushings.

The machine features a DynaTrol 2.0 HMi touch-screen control for specific wash programming and owner/supervisor productivity reporting. An integrated ozone control provides maximum safety and easy use of EDRO’s optional DynOzone ozone system. Dual-fill piping and dual drains decrease step times for fast, efficient cycle times.

The side-mounted motor plate and enclosed cabinet guard significantly lower the machine profile. Drawing on experience gleaned from its endloading models, the ESL400 incorporates EDRO’s dynamically tuned DynaMount suspension for decreased vibration transmission.

The machine is driven by an inverter with single-motor variable-speed drive and high-slip/positioning brake system. Paired with the HMi/PLC’s programmability, multiple parameter settings allow high-torque wash speeds with steep slope starts/stops and elongated slopes for even load distribution and accelera-

tion to high extract.

Inverter drive monitoring and EDRO’s exclusive variable step extract sequencing produce smoother speed transitions between agitate/distribution/ acceleration phases to final high-extract speed. The unique speed algorithm increases spin speed as water is removed from the load, decreasing water weight. High-slip braking allows braking torque above 100% of full-load motor torque by controlling deceleration from high speed, making the motor operate as an induction generator. This means no additional parts are required to stop the machine, the company says.

www.edrocorp.com | 800-628-6434

Royal Basket Trucks

Poly Scale carts from Royal Basket Trucks offer efficiency and process improvement, along with energy and financial savings. Load weight matched with the equipment capacity provides efficient chemical, water and energy usage. Reprocessing costs money, as does the additional energy needed when loads are too large—not to mention the impact on equipment maintenance schedules.

These carts are a perfect addition to many environments, both small and large, says Royal Basket Trucks.

Certified scales are also available.

Royal Basket Trucks offers a full line of molded plastic carts, vinyl and canvas carts for bulk handling and transport to small sorting functions.

The company is located in Darien, Wis., and all

Royal products are made in the USA and available through a vast network of authorized distributors.

www.royal-basket.com | 800-426-6447

SonicAire

SonicAire® clean fans have a track record of success to control the dangerous buildup of fugitive lint, the company says. They are a proven solution that prevents fugitive lint from accumulating on overhead structures. SonicAire fans save money—a one-time investment means a long-term solution for overhead combustible lint.

The SonicAire 2.0 has a 2HP TEAO fan motor that delivers more than twice the cleaning of the original SonicAire fan, the company says. Installation costs are slashed more than half, and the fan can pay for itself in as little as one year.

The SonicAire 2 has variations that can be added separately, or combined to suit a laundry’s needs. The 2.c is “compact” and can be placed in tight spaces; the 2.hw can work in heat up to 180 F and is water-tight.

Every SonicAire fan is powered by Clean Fan™ Technology, which creates an air barrier that shields your overhead structures from lint buildup. This is achieved through precisely directed high-mass and high-velocity air flow.

With this innovative engineering design, facilities can consistently maintain the highest levels of clean to comply with OSHA regulations on overhead combustible lint, says the company.

The SonicAire “Try and Buy” program lets customers try a fan for 60 days and return it if they are not 100% satisfied.

IPA

The scrubXchange solution from IPA allows laundries to build a world-class scrub rental program for hospitals as clean scrubs are laundered, delivered and easily loaded into the machine, the company says.

Laundries can streamline scrub distribution to improve service, control infection and generate cost savings. The portable exchange cart makes remote inventory replenishment

convenient for linen managers and laundries. It accommodates an easy exchange cart swap right at the machine’s location.

scrubXchange is part of IPA’s suite of solutions designed to reduce replacement and processing costs for hospital linens and surgical scrubs.

www.thinkipa.com | 888-200-4797

Kannegiesser USA

With factories located in Germany, Kannegiesser understands the importance of supporting the equipment in North America. Over the last several years, the company has grown and added the necessary infrastructure to provide seamless service for their customers. The North American operations of Kannegiesser are based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (Grand Prairie, Texas) and provide full support for technical service, project management, laundry design and administrative functions, the company says.

In addition, a full spare-parts warehouse and team can offer packages for the customer’s shelf, or the required part can be shipped quickly as the DFW airport is located only 10 minutes away from corporate headquarters.

There is a heavy focus on strategically placed, factory-trained technicians across several regions located in the United States and Canada. The company is in the process of adding even more decentralized technicians, as the customer base has grown substantially. With every new equipment purchase, Kannegiesser provides comprehensive training covering maintenance, programming, recommended production techniques, preventative maintenance procedures and safety protocol. The company also offers detailed service seminars providing additional training opportunities for your staff.

Additional support is also available through yearly service contracts. The contracts include regular visits by factory-trained technicians, preventative maintenance check-ups and additional on-site customer training. As an added benefit with service contracts, customers also receive reduced labor rates for emergency or scheduled repairs, and substantial spare-parts discounts, the company says.

Kannegiesser also provides 24-hour phone support for its equipment: Monday through Friday at 800-344-0403, and nights, weekends and holidays at 972-602-8771.

www.kannegiesser-usa.com | 800-344-0403

JENSEN USA

JENSEN’s Express/Blanket is a highproduction blanket feeding and folding system. With production figures up to 1,000 pieces per hour, this system can eliminate a huge bottleneck in any laundry, the company says.

The JENSEN Express/Blanket consists of the Jenfeed Express Uno, Duo or Trio (one-, two- or three-station) cornerless spreader-feeder and a Jenfold Blanket single-lane folder-crossfolder, making up to two lateral folds and up to three crossfolds in both bath and thermal blankets. Available working widths are 120 inches and 130 inches.

The simple, yet exceptionally rugged design of the Jenfeed Express is appreciated by both production management and maintenance departments alike, says the company. Its high-performance capabilities, coupled with a high level of uptime, allow for consistent productivity.

The Jenfold Blanket is based upon a highly proven multi-decade design,

JENSEN says. The lateral folds are made via programmable high or low air pressures. The first crossfold is made via knife blade, the second crossfold is made via reverse belting and an air blast and the third crossfold is made via reverse belting and a knife blade. This lateral and crossfolding method produces an exceptional finished product.

Add a Viking 2000 Large-Piece Separator and a Jenstack Maxstack large-piece stacker and conveyor to complete the system.

JENSEN says it can’t expect employees to meet given production requirements if they are not provided with the proper tools and environment in which to be successful. The future is here today; it is time to step into the 21st century. For more information, visit the company’s YouTube channel to view a variety of videos designed to enlighten. www.jensen-group.com | 850-271-5959

Rennco

Rennco manufactures Vertical L bar sealing systems for laundry applications. For more than 40 years, laundry operations have depended on the company’s solutions to package various items in center-folded polyethylene. Rennco says it is a market leader in vertical bagging equipment and backs its durable, easy-to-operate equipment with experienced engineering and customer support to ensure ongoing customer satisfaction.

At the heart of every Rennco machine is the unique sealing system that allows a variety of materials to be sealed by adjusting three critical parameters: heat, pressure and time. This constantly heated, coated-seal bar provides smokeless, odorless and lowmaintenance sealing for all product applications.

Specialized to the laundry industry, machines in the VerticL-PP series are available as fully or semi-automatic solutions that ensure

quality and safe handling of towels, rags and other products. Single- or dual-operator load stations and sealing systems are on one common frame to increase output, up to 4,000 products per hour, from the bagging operation.

Customers appreciate the many benefits a Rennco solution provides, the company says, including touch-screen recipe selection for package specifications, light-screen auto cycle for automatic machine cycling, vertical film-roll placement for ease of changing roll-stock material, trimless package for no material scrap, and bag tapper to assist with distribution of products in the package.

www.rennco.com | 800-409-5225

A.L. Wilson Chemical Co.

When dealing with laundry stains, get the outstanding results The Laundry Two deliver, A.L. Wilson Chemical Co. says.

RiteGo laundry spray spotter quickly penetrates to absorb ground-in soil, oils and greases, collar and cuff stains and more, all without brushing, the company says. Then turn to Laundry TarGo to remove any tough oil-based stains that remain behind.

Both Laundry TarGo and RiteGo are chlorinated solvent-free and NPE-free, biodegradable, noncombustible, and California VOC- and Prop-65-compliant. Use them to deliver stain-free laundry.

www.alwilson.com | 800-526-1188

American Dawn

American Dawn says the LunchkinTM is America’s choice to replace paper napkins.

At breakfast and lunch, if every American uses reusable linen napkins instead of paper, 60 million trees per year can be saved, says the company.

That means less water use, less energy use, less waste in landfills, less toxic paper production chemicals and the best part, according to American Dawn, is restaurants create a fine-dining experience while helping the bottom line.

The company says the Lunchkin replaces single-use paper napkins to save money and lasts more than 100 wash cycles. It’s never ironed, so less energy is used. Also, the fabric is made from recycled plastic bottles. The Lunchkin saves up to 5 billion pounds of trash per year, the company says.

Finally, according to American Dawn, the Lunchkin creates a better dining experience and sets you apart in the marketplace.

www.americandawn.com | 800-821-2221

Fashion Seal Healthcare

Fashion Seal Healthcare® is introducing new colors and styles to its SimplySoft® line of scrub apparel.

Designed and developed with the new healthcare market in mind, the company says SimplySoft offers:

• Softer feel for enhanced comfort to the end-user.

• Retail-inspired styles to please fashion-forward employees.

• Styling details including value-added features such as side flex panels, cross-over tops, and pants with added cargo pockets. Now available in petites and talls.

• Industrial laundry-friendly, creating value-added products and bringing retail customers back to the laundry.

Healthcare professionals will love the soft feel, flattering features and functionality, according to the company. SimplySoft® balances comfort, durability and ease of care.

www.fashionsealhealthcare.com | 610-442-0880

On all of the above units we have continued to build, and will continue to have available any part of the pressure vessel, burners, cabinet, and controls meaning that for as long as a customer wants, they will be able to infinitely repair their equipment rather than replace the equipment.

installed properly, and do receive our minimal recommended care, are applied to the correct application, and include the proper maintenance and water treatment programs.

Parker Boiler Co.

Parker Boiler Co.’s indirect-fired water heaters are heavy-duty packaged boilers designed to heat water for laundry, coin laundry and other applications, the company says.

Other applications include swimming pools, domestic water heat pumps, pond heating—any application where a large amount of one-way water is required.

WH Series boilers are available with inputs ranging from 300,000 to 3 million Btu. They are UL- and/or ETL-listed to UL795 and manufactured under ASME Section I and IV. They can heat water in the low-temperature, 60 F to 100 F range with-

out flue gas condensation, the company says, and can provide up to 190 F without burning out the heat-transfer coil, thanks to a flame that fires on the 10-gauge-steel side of the boiler and pulls water indirectly from the unit’s finned copper heat exchanger.

Boilers are available in natural gas, propane and low-NOx firing, and the company offers optional 316 stainless-steel heat exchangers and copper/nickel heat exchangers.

Parker says it has boilers dating to 1959 that are still in service. www.parkerboiler.com | 323-727-9800

McClure Industries

What makes McClure Industries’ Sanitrux® significant to decision makers is a high return on investment, ergonomic design, strength, maneuverability, fire-retardant certification and a long service life of 15 to 20 years—three to four times longer than other carts, the company says.

McClure’s Sanitrux carts exceed all NFPA and IFC fire codes and are proven to not add fuel to a fire. Many models come with firesuppression lids that close automatically. Many other cart brands hold an FM 6921 certification. The fire test for this certification consists of paper ignited inside a cart that is allowed to burn for 15 seconds. After 15 seconds, a person manually closes the lid. If paper under the cart or cheesecloth suspended 18 inches above it doesn’t catch fire, it’s pronounced “fire-retardant.”

Most facility fires cannot be detected or extinguished in 15 seconds. The only test for certification recognized by fire professionals is the

cone calorimeter test, according to ASTM-E 1354. Sanitrux cart material has been tested to ASTM-E 1354 and is Certified Class II Fire Retardant by Warnock/Hersey Intertek. This certification ensures a fire-retardant cart.

There’s no greater eyesore than an ugly utility cart in a beautiful facility. Sanitrux carts are made specifically for the facility where they will be used, and can be customized to harmonize with the facility’s colors and bear its logo. McClure offers repair services to extend cart life.

The company invites customers to try Sanitrux and see if they agree with industry customers who say their carts are the longest-lasting, most attractive and safest in the industry.

www.mcclureindustries.com | 800-752-2821

Kemco Systems

With today’s shortage of water plus high water utility costs, it is becoming increasingly difficult for laundries to operate efficiently without compromising quality.

Kemco Systems provides a solution with its state-of-the-art Ceramic Membrane Filtration system (CMF), one of the most efficient methods available for achieving a high water-recycle rate for all laundry applications, the company says.

CMF removes suspended and emulsified contaminants from wastewater without the addition of treatment chemicals, turning dirty water clean. The CMF system is capable of recycling 65% or more of process water requirements, saving

laundries thousands of dollars in operating costs, Kemco says.

Recycle rates can increase up to 80% with the addition of Kemco’s Reverse Osmosis system. Reverse osmosis removes total dissolved solids to produce water quality of the highest standard. This system will provide the purity necessary for sensitive rinse operations.

The filtration system is highly effective in reducing the cost of energy and water, reducing wastewater compliance issues and can provide a rapid return on investment.

www.kemcosystems.com | 800-633-7055

Ecolab

TurboSolve™ is cutting-edge technology of industrial, solvenated detergent, the company says. Capable of achieving exceptional results on tough industrial stains as a traditional solvent, TurboSolve cleans without the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) and aromatic hydrocarbons.

Ecolab is sensitive to the needs of commercial laundries, which are under increased environmental scrutiny, particularly in regards to VOCs, an increasingly regulated component. Therefore, Ecolab designed TurboSolve, whose technology allows it to target extremely tough stains, such as tar and paint, while being compliant with environmental regulations. By achieving this level of clean without VOCs, the use of TurboSolve can also be part of a wash program to reduce biological organic demand (BOD), Ecolab says.

In addition to tar and paint, TurboSolve is highly effective in washing textiles that require special care. Workwear that is flameretardant or contains reflective tape requires washing without alkalinity, preventing them from achieving the highest level of clean. Regardless of soil levels, TurboSolve delivers clean textiles without degrading the safety qualities.

“Safety is critically important at Ecolab,” says Dave Adams, Ecolab’s vice president and general manager, Textile Care North America. “TurboSolve achieves necessary levels of cleanliness while maintaining the integrity of the safety features on the garments.”

TurboSolve has benefits in addition to its cleaning power, the company says. This proprietary formula is free of ingredients and VOCs that make textiles stiff and smell of aromatic hydrocarbons after being processed.

Whether it’s removing tar and paint from all types of fabric, or safely cleaning flame-retardant or reflective workwear, TurboSolve provides high versatility in industrial cleaning.

www.ecolab.com | 800-553-8683

the coal mine’ and get cited and fined,” says Schwarzmann.

“Pre-existing OSHA data sheets, employee training and labeling requirements have been around for decades,” he points out. “Today, we’re obligated to comply with the Hazard Communication Standard, but on June 1 a new updated standard becomes mandatory.

“We are evolving from an old standard to a new one.”

An OSHA newsletter indicates the agency wants its new materials to be “presented in a consistent, user-friendly way.”

Schwarzmann indicates that businesses can face steep fines, possibly in the $10,000-$15,000 range, if an OSHA inspector visits and cites a business for failure to comply.

OSHA headquarters in Washington was contacted by American Drycleaner magazine for comment on the Standard and its enforcement. Ultimately, the agency referred the publication to its Office of Communications.

Multiple phone messages left there were not returned by press time.

Information about the Hazard Communication Standard is available by visiting the OSHA website, www.osha.gov, or by calling 800-321-6742. ALN

Tim Burke is editor of sister publication American Drycleaner

ALEXANDRIA, Va. —

The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) has two events coming up toward the end of summer: the Ehrlich-Stempler Executive Management Institute (EMI), Aug. 7-11, and the Annual Conference, Sept. 19-21. Both events will feature changes this year, the association says.

EMI

Informal discussion with peers during receptions and meals has long been a valued component of the educational experience delivered by EMI, conducted annually at the University of Maryland. As the training program founded 51 years ago begins its second half-century, this informality is becoming more scheduled, according to TRSA.

(included in the participant registration fee). Previously, these outings were optional and billed separately. Now, when registering for EMI, participants simply need to request to attend them.

On Tuesday, Aug. 9, participants will take a bus tour to view illuminated national monuments in nearby downtown Washington. The following night, they’ll enjoy dinner at Lucky Strike, the vintage-mod bowling and billiards spot, says the association.

alert users to chemical hazards to which they may be exposed and are required by OSHA as of June 1. Employees must be informed and trained on hazardous chemicals in their job.

Two off-campus evening social activities in nearby Washington, D.C., are now incorporated into the agenda

With four full days of management development classes each year, EMI primarily consists of activities led by academics and consultants experienced with the textile services industry. Interaction between participants in classrooms, sharing their everyday work experiences, makes academic exercises industry-specific. Participants begin relationships with classmates

G.A. Braun hires field regional sales manager

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — G.A. Braun Inc. has hired Sam Spence as a field regional sales manager, the company reports.

Spence holds a bachelor of arts from Penn State University and has more than two decades of plant management experience in the laundry industry, according to Braun.

“Sam Spence brings to our customer base exceptional knowledge and experience in plant assessments and operations, which results in the keen ability to deliver optimum laundry equipment solutions,” says Gary Ostrum, Braun’s East Coast regional VP of sales.

The company says Spence’s area of coverage will be Braun’s Southeastern U.S. territory, spanning the states of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Track Career

Division has added three new team members: Trey Northrup, general manager; Chad Lange, director of sales, service and parts; and Matthew Conn, senior manager, product development and marketing.

“Trey, Chad and Matt bring not only fresh ideas, but new perspectives to the team. As your complete commercial laundry solution provider, we strive to engineer unmatched products and provide best-in-class service and customer support, and these new team members help deliver on our objectives,” says Brett Dibkey, vice president and general manager, integrated business units at Whirlpool Corp.

As general manager, the company says Northrup will oversee the global commercial laundry business. Northrup’s experience is extensive, including nearly 15 years with Whirlpool Corp. where he has held leadership positions such as director of commercial execution and new business, director of sales and marketing and director of merchandising. Most recently, Northrup was the general manager for Whirlpool Corp.’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

mize and grow the division footprint, the company says. Starting at Whirlpool Corp. in 2000 as an electrical engineer with the global product organization, Lange has since held many roles of increasing responsibilities, including product business team finance lead, senior marketing and product development manager and director of sales operations.

As senior manager of commercial laundry product development and marketing, Conn will be responsible for product development and marketing strategy development, according to Whirlpool Corp. Conn’s applicable experience, including marketing and business development, category and product development, and merchandising for both consumer and trade brands within Whirlpool Corp., makes him an ideal fit for this position, the company says.

SonicAire promotes two from within to support growth

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — SonicAire® has transitioned two employees into executive leadership roles, the company reports.

for the Northeast region, has become the vice president of sales and marketing, responsible for SonicAire sales teams and marketing efforts.

“Newton will oversee the development of our products, ensuring that SonicAire fans continue to comply with U.S. and international standards,” says Brad Carr, president of SonicAire. “Newton’s creative approach to engineering procedures promotes an environment of ingenuity and entrepreneurship, as we strive to remain on the cutting edge of providing innovative solutions for our clients.

experience as a project engineer from Underwriters Laboratories, says SonicAire. Newton joined the company in 2010, advancing to become vice president of engineering and sales.

Sanders began his 29-year career with Andersen Windows in sales, rising to serve in executive sales and management roles, says the company. In 2010, Sanders founded and became co-owner of Portco Automation & Marine. Sanders joined SonicAire as the head of Northeast sales in 2014.

Gurtler hires new manager of market development

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. — Whirlpool Corp.’s Commercial Laundry

Lange will be responsible for the creation and development of the global sales, service and parts strategy, implementing business development initiatives that maxi-

Jordan Newton is now the vice president of innovation and engineering overseeing SonicAire fan design and engineering. John Sanders, former head of sales

“Sanders will manage and support sales functions, coordinating sales efforts with marketing strategies and directives. With a wealth of skills and leadership experience that equip him to take SonicAire to the next level, Sanders has a proven track record in communicating our brand identity in the marketplace.”

Newton is a professional engineer with experience in forensic engineering from Accident Reconstruction Analysis and

SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill. — Gurtler Industries Inc. hired Duane Farrington II in February to be manager of market development in the Eastern Ohio area, the company reports.

Gurtler says that Farrington has been in the laundry business for more than 30 years, including starting and managing his own laundry for more than 16 years.

He has been an active member of the Association for Linen Management (ALM) since 1993 and also holds its Registered Laundry and Linen Director certification (RLLD).

Whirlpool Corp. has new commercial laundry leadership

Newton

Sanders

Northrup

Spence

Loomis Bros. hires new sales rep for Kan., western Mo.

FENTON, Mo. — Loomis Bros. Equipment Co. has named Drew Hoselton its sales representative for western Missouri and Kansas regions, the company reports.

Hoselton will be responsible for the OPL and vended laundries in these regions.

“We are very excited to add Drew to our team. His attitude, work ethic and desire to always do the right thing align perfectly with our corporate philosophy,” says Matt Lamons, sales and marketing manager.

Loomis Brothers is a dealer for Pellerin Milnor Corp., American Dryer, Chicago Dryer Co., Huebsch and Maytag Commercial Laundry equipment.

He earned a bachelor of science in sports administration with a minor in communications from the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2011. ALN

TRSA

when they first attend EMI, TRSA says. These deepen in subsequent years as they complete the program by returning annually with original classmates three more times.

“Even smaller companies need people besides the top executives to be leaders, especially front-line managers who work with many different customers and employees. EMI improves their skills and gives them a group of professional friends,” says Michael Lutz, CEO, American Linen Supply of New Mexico, Las Cruces, N.M., a 2007 EMI graduate.

“At EMI, you see how our companies are not in worlds of our own,” says Barbara Bailey-Polk, Roscoe Co., Chicago, who is returning in August for her third year. “We face the same issues and share the same values and we respect each other for it.”

The first-year program provides participants with practical insight that can be immediately applied to motivate and inspire co-workers and employees to streamline pro-

duction, improve productivity and increase profitability, the association says, including:

• Developing effective communications skills.

• Managing innovation and change.

• Reducing conflict.

H. Kent Baker, finance professor at American University (D.C.), is the first-year class instructor and program dean. He’s been part of the EMI teaching corps since 1976, with training and consulting experience with more than 100 organizations.

Individuals who have achieved TRSA’s Certified Professional Laundry Manager (CPLM) certification receive 31 credit hours toward recertification by attending EMI. Learn more at www.trsa.org/ emi

ANNUAL CONFERENCE

TRSA says it is introducing a new approach to reduce the expense for an operator member (laundry) to attend the Annual Conference while facilitating more constructive problem-andsolution discussions with associate member (laundry supplier) partners, the association reports.

The event near Phoenix will feature the new Executive Exchange,

replacing exhibits with scheduled interactions.

Changing how textile services executives learn about new products and services, the sessions will provide ample opportunity for discussing the most pertinent innovations by matching associates and operators, says TRSA. They will schedule, accept and reject proposed invitations to ensure productive meetings.

Owners, senior executives and other laundry professional decision-makers who commit to nine such 15-minute meetings receive a 100% rebate of their conference registration fee, according to the association. And an additional rebate will be awarded for a second company representative who participates.

TRSA says the sessions will take place in two-hour conference agenda blocks on Tuesday, Sept. 20, and Wednesday, Sept. 21. Appointment setting will take place approximately three weeks prior to the conference. Participants will receive detailed instructions on using the online scheduling process before the matchmaking begins.

“These 15-minute meetings between operators’ decision-makers and leading associate suppliers

offer a unique opportunity to learn about new, innovative products and develop personal connections,” says TRSA President and CEO Joseph Ricci. “There is no better format for textile services executives to spend focused time researching the products and services that can improve operational efficiency.”

Online registration is now open for operators at www.trsa.org/ annualconference. When registering, operators designate their primary and secondary representatives to the Exchange; rebates will be awarded following the Exchange. Associates register by downloading an Exchange reservation form from the same webpage.

The TRSA Annual Conference & Executive Exchange fosters interaction between nearly 100 executives and senior management from independent, regional and national companies providing textile services to the food/beverage, healthcare, hospitality and industrial/uniform sectors, according to the association.

Details of the conclave at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort in Chandler, Ariz., including keynote presentations and social activities, had not been released at press time. ALN

Hoselton

Braun production factory expansion ahead of schedule in New York

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — G.A. Braun Inc. and its subsidiary CNY Fabrication have begun expansion of its domestic production facility here and expect to finish earlier than the projected completion date, the company reports.

Braun’s CEO, James Werner, and president, Joseph Gudenburr IV, said in a joint statement, “Seven years ago, we consolidated our domestic operations at our current location with the building of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. It is our hope that this expansion will simply be one of many that will positively impact the laundry industry.

“We are very excited to have the opportunity to invest in our business, our people and the region.”

The company says the additional 101,000 square feet of production space will be used to support business and new product development initiatives, diversification pursuits domestically and internationally, and expansion of its core capabilities.

Fibers and Textiles Manufacturing Innovation Institute launched

WASHINGTON — A consortium of 89 manufacturers, universities and nonprofits organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will spearhead a new manufacturing innovation institute in partnership with the Department of Defense focused on securing U.S. leadership in revolutionary fibers and textiles manufacturing, says Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

Officials from the Obama administration say the new Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Cambridge, Mass., will combine more than $75 million of federal resources with nearly $250 million of nonfederal investment in innovative fabrics and textiles with novel properties, ranging from being incredibly lightweight and flame-resistant to having exceptional strength and containing electronic sensors.

With wide-ranging applications, these technical textiles can forge protective gear for firefighters impervious to the hottest flames, replicate the sensing capabilities of a smartwatch into a lightweight fabric or detect when a wounded soldier needs to be treated with an antimicrobial compression bandage, according to the administration.

The American textile industry is adding jobs for the first time in decades, increasing shipments by 14% from 2009 to 2015, and growing exports globally with a 39% increase in exports from 2009 to 2015, the administration reports. After a decade in decline during the 2000s, the U.S. manufacturing sector as a whole has added nearly 900,000 jobs since February 2010.

This new institute is the eighth manufacturing hub to be awarded by the Obama administration, building on the president’s vision to create a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation

(NNMI) of at least 15 hubs across the country during his administration.

Aramark partners with Dickies to launch new auto shop collection

PHILADELPHIA — Aramark, a provider of uniform rental and uniform leasing services, has partnered with Dickies to offer a new line of automotive performance apparel, the company reports.

“We are focused on introducing innovative ways to help businesses enhance the customer and employee experience,” says Aramark Chief Operating Officer Brad Drummond.

“The new Dickies Shop Series offers a great new collection for auto service professionals that combines style and comfort to elevate the image of any auto repair business, while inspiring confidence among customers.”

The new collection of automotive performance apparel offers styles for both men and women in multiple colors. It includes long- and short-sleeve work shirts, long- and short-sleeve polos, multi-pocket performance shop pants and jackets, says Aramark. The line was created with flex fabric to be comfortable, stain-resistant and hard-wearing.

Dickies Shop Series is available to Aramark customers through its uniform rental program, which includes the pickup, laundering and delivery of fresh uniforms weekly, the company says.

G.A. Braun’s expansion

(Photo: G.A. Braun Inc.)

PRNewsFoto/Aramark)

Automated Packaging Systems acquires Ergocon Solutions

STREETSBORO, Ohio — Automated Packaging Systems, a designer and manufacturer of bagging systems, has acquired Ergocon Solutions, the company reports.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Ergocon designs and manufactures automated textile inspection and packaging systems for professional laundry applications that include bar, shop, utility and microfiber towels, plus washcloths, pillow slips, gloves, mops and more.

“We have worked closely with Ergocon and its customers, providing state-of-the-art baggers and pre-formed bags for the overall solution,” says Cliff Brehm, president of Automated Packaging Systems. “With this acquisition, we see an opportunity to expand our product line to meet the unique needs of the professional laundry market, in North America and internationally. We are committed to delivering solutions that improve productivity and reduce costs for our customers.”

The company says it will continue to support existing Ergocon customers with full access to technical support, customer service, spare parts and bag packaging materials.

As part of the acquisition, engineers from both companies have worked together to enhance this field-proven system, now called the Autobag® Ergocon Textile Packaging System™, according to Automated Packaging Systems.

The company says the new system offers easier loading capabilities, new custom alarm options, versatility in the operating software

and output ports that can be synchronized to third-party monitoring software.

Domestic Uniform Rental celebrates 90th anniversary

DETROIT — This year, Domestic Uniform Rental marks its 90th anniversary of serving the uniform, linen and dust control needs of its customers, the company reports.

Domestic says it shares this honor with all of the men and women who made it possible: devoted, loyal employees; suppliers who have become partners; valued customers who have grown alongside Domestic; and communities that have welcomed Domestic as neighbors and local contributors.

The company had humble beginnings as Domestic Linen Supply and Laundry Co., operating out of a converted horse stable in downtown Detroit in 1926. Domestic says its commitment to hard work, superior product quality and providing exceptional service mirrored Detroit’s status as a blue-collar city at the epicenter of the 20th-century industrial boom.

Domestic grew dramatically in tandem with Detroit’s industry, increasing its product offerings and customer base, and creating more jobs, the company says.

During the latter half of the 20th century, Domestic expanded operations throughout the Midwest, and with strategic acquisitions took a strong foothold in the Northeast, Atlantic Coast, and California.

Despite this rapid growth, Domestic says it has held onto the ideals of its family-oriented roots, inspiring strong customer and employee loyalty into the 21st century. ALN

Calendar

June

11-15 Texcare International World Market for Modern Textile Care Frankfurt, Germany Info: texcare.com

14-18 Textile Rental Services Association European Laundry Tour Frankfurt, Germany Info: 703-519-0029

22 Textile Rental Services Association Webinar: Family Business Dynamics Alexandria, Va. Info: 703-519-0029

30 Association for Linen Management Webinar: Are Temp Nurses Hijacking Your Linen Utilization? Richmond, Ky. Info: 859-624-0177

July

12-14 China Laundry Expo 2016 China International Laundry Industry Exhibition Shanghai, China Info: 813-774 6664

21 Association for Linen Management Webinar: Top Tips for Transportation Management Richmond, Ky. Info: 859-624-0177

August

7-11 Textile Rental Services Association Executive Management Institute (EMI) Alexandria, Va. Info: 703-519-0029

18 Association for Linen Management Webinar: Thinking Outside the Box: Saving Time, Money and Labor Richmond, Ky. Info: 859-624-0177

September

13-16 Universal Unilink Leadership16 San Antonio, Texas Info: 888-830-7872 ALN

Senking

Senking

Colmac Steam Tunnel System 2100-2

Quincy & GD 200HP Screw Air Compressors

Unipress Utility Press

Braun 500lb Gas Dryers (8)

Milnor 72072 500lb Gas Pass-Through System Dryers (2)

American Hypro 8 Roll Ironers (8)

Chicago Edge Maxx 2-Station Feeders (2)

Chicago Edge Maxx Spreader Feeders (3)

Challenge Pace Setter Gas Dryers (6)

Challenge Pace Setter Steam Dryers (2)

Braun Rear Discharge Small Piece Folders (10)

Blanket System Edge Feeder & Skyline Folder (2)

Jensen LTron 450lb Washers (3)

Cleaver Brooks 400HP Boiler (1)

Cleaver Brooks 400HP Dual Fuel Boilers (2)

Norman Lift Tables Model 5

Ludell Heat Reclaimer

Jensen 200 Pound L Tron (1)

Sager Spreader

Heat Reclaimer with two Stainless Steel 2500

Gallon Storage with Steam Bundle

White Conveyors

Jensen Single Stage CBW Extraction Press 20042007 (4)

Hirsch

Chemical Sales Position A Own Your Own Drycleaners— Managers, Spotters, Tailors, Pressers! 100% Financing. Plant or Drop, location of your choice. Call 1-561-302-5031 or 1-888-275-6637.

PLUS CONVEYORS, CARTS, LIFTS, SCALES AND MUCH MORE! CALL TODAY! Stanco Industries, Inc. Serving The Textile Trades Since 1970 800-932-3769 k for Mike or Deb KEEPING IT GREEN SINCE 1970 ---------------------------- FOR SALE ------------------------4- 1997 Braun 600# Washers 3- 1997 Braun 600# Gas Dryers with Lint Filters 1- 2015 Braun Shuttle 1- 1980 CB 400hp Boiler 2- 1997 Colmac 1200 Pant Finishers 4-Lift Tables White 30-Rout Conv Sort System Stanco Industries, Inc. 800-932-3769 Ask for Mike or Deb or e-mail: stanco2626@aol.com www.StanCoInd.com CONTACT: CLASSIFIEDS@ AMERICANTRADEMAGAZINES.COM

Technical Support Engineer

Join The Ellis Corporation, the leader in the laundry, wastewater and energy recovery equipment industry. Our substantial growth has created the immediate need for additional Technical Support Engineers to support our customers in the US and abroad while maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction.

Your Tasks:

Working from your home office as a Technical Support Engineer, ensure that machine installation, corrective and preventative maintenance and warranty service is carried out in a professional manner. Travel to customer locations to provide service, training and technical support. Communicate clearly with customers to implement necessary actions. Report daily progress to Service Coordinator. Submit completed service call reports, expense reports, etc. on time as required. Comply with established Ellis Safety and Code of Conduct standards.

direct at

INTERNATIONAL EQUIPMENT GROUP

Northeast regional company providing

to the Commercial Laundry Market is seeking a professional level sales person to join our

Your Profile:

• Must be authorized to work in the US

• High School diploma or equivalent required; trade school experience is a plus.

• Previous mechanical/electrical experience is required

• PLC service and some project experience is helpful

• Ability to interpret engineering schematic documents

• Position requires 85% travel including nights and occasional weekends, sometimes with short notice

• Valid driver’s license and passport in good standing and be eligible to travel abroad

• Capable of critical thinking and problem solving

• Position requires regular bending and lifting in industrial settings

• Must have basic tool kit

We Offer:

Competitive base salary with potential bonus. Comprehensive health/dental/ vision benefits. 401k. Life insurance. Short term and long term disability. Vacation and Holidays. Uniform provided.

Please send resume with salary requirements to:

Ellis Corporation

(704)342-0758 www.gardnermachinery.com

Pellerin

P.O. Box 400, Kenner, LA 70063 504-467-9591, Fax: 504-468-3094 www.milnor.com

Pellerin

P.O. Box 400, Kenner, LA 70063 504-467-9591, Fax: 504-468-3094 www.milnor.com