Managers Machines & Management

Some of the laundry set ups of five star deluxe hotels are described here below:

1. In the first instance, a laundry had 1,550sqft area occupied by machinery, including area earmarked for a little expansion @ 10%. The load capacity during full occupancy was 5,500 kg / day and the total area of laundry excluding factors as mentioned came to 4600sqft. With a ratio of 1:3 and working of 14 hours a day, the laundry was crammed with full or near full occupancy and was able to provide decent quality output due to very good processes. However,full potential was not explored because of drop in quality, due to little space for storing stained linen for reprocessing, spot-cleaning of garments, etc. Cleaning area meant for Guests’ garments was used for linen spotting, leading to inadvertent damage to Guests’ garments. The ceiling height of this laundry is 17ft
2. In another instance, the area occupied by machinery was 1,500sqft and the load with full occupancy was 7,500kg / day. Hence the total area was 4,000sqft at a ratio of 2.7:1. Working for 18-20 hours a day, the quality was very good with processes conceived by us. However, it could still have been better. It was taking a dip, due to similar factors as above. Ceiling height = 15ft.
3. In the third laundry, the area occupied by machinery was 1,300sqft, the load in full occupancy 3,500kg / day and the total area was 4,800sqft at a ratio of 3.7:1. Working for 14 hours / day, more space was occupied for reprocessing and spotting. Hence, the quality could have been maintained better with very good processes. Ceiling height = 8.5ft. Partial A/C was introduced for reduction of ambient temperature.

Some examples of Industrial Laundries & Commercial Laundries are described here below:

1.  An industrial laundry catering to linens / uniforms / guest’ garments, as also retail garments, had 2,800sqft area occupied by machinery which processed a total linen load of 15,000kg / day from over 40 hotels, including 5000 uniforms items, out of which 1,800 were highly soiled shirts. The total retail garments processed were 4000 pieces / day. The facility worked for 16 hours in shifts for each – retail garments and for linens. The total area of laundry was 40,000sqft at a ratio of 1:14.3. At least 20 pieces of carpets of such sizes as 16ft x 16ft and above and curtains were processed every day. The ceiling height was 34ft.
2.  In another industrial laundry, catering to linens / uniforms through CBW and a few batch washers, had approximately 6000sqft occupied by machines. It had a maximum capacity of linen processing load of 40,000kg / day and the total area of laundry was 50,000sqft at a ratio of 1:8.3. The ceiling height was 34ft.
3. This laundry was catering to only retail garments through washer extractors and dry cleaning. The area occupied by machinery was 175sqft and total garments processed was up to 500 pieces / day. The area of the laundry was 2800sqft at a ratio of 1:16 with carpets / curtains / rich & designers’ garments / leather garments being processed. The ceiling height was 20ft.

Planning of Machinery

It involves calculations of hourly production, as required by the organisation and matching capacity of all machinery. The entire processing of linens and garments go through two, three or more types of machinery and finally get manual or machine packed and delivered. Hence, the capacity of all machines in the sequence need to match with the quantity required to be processed per hour or per unit time.