There are varied machines in different premises where laundry is being set up either out of necessity or as a business enterprise. However, the basics of machines and management remain the same in similar cases.
When we take into account large laundries with high quality output or medium laundries with appropriate machines, the points commonly considered include having quality machinery & accessories.
The other points include chemicals & detergents both for wet & dry cleaning; water parameters, its storage, distribution and reuse, and discharge into main drainage through ETP / STP; stable electricity & heating / pressing medium; stores facility; security; and firefighting
equipment, PPE, breathing apparatus, ventilation fans and AC, and accessories and facilities like packing material and hangers; and dining, potable water, tea or energy drinks at regular intervals, & resting facilities, as also recreation & toilet / bathing facilities for staff.
[box type=”shadow” ]Other points could be
- HRD – time, office, recruitment of staff, & accounts
- Sales & marketing team for getting new customers & retaining them, through their feedback & quality
- Innovations / trials, & garments / fabrics knowledge
- IT – marking of garments & records of garments / linen / clients & guests
- Complaints / mistakes feedback & kaizen (continuous improvement)
- Feedback from competitors, society and suppliers
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Having trained manpower and workforce in service station factory, including maintenance, logistics, outlets (shops or collection centres) is equally essential. Health checkup of staff and counselling; dining facility; provision of potable water, tea or energy drinks at regular intervals; resting, recreation and toilet / bathing facilities for staff; and transportation facilities from pick-up points in the city / town. All these enables workforce retention, motivation and skill development.
Selection and commissioning of machinery
Planning of machinery area
Area excluding boiler & paraphernalia, compressor, maintenance office and stores can be calculated approximately in the actual area needed to be worked out when the project is on. This depends upon many factors, like where the laundry is situated / parsto be maintained / chute delivery or trolley delivery of soiled linen, etc - For a five-star in-house laundry, working for 12 hours per day, total area should be four times of the one occupied by all machinery for better working & maintenance. If the laundry works for 18-20 hours a day, area may be three or a quarter times. However, proper scheduling of soiled linen supply / uniforms and delivery needs to be meticulously planned. Proper pars for change are absolutely a must. Minimum clear ceiling height should be 13/14ft.
Some of the laundry set ups of five star deluxe hotels are described here below:
- 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
- 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.
- 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:
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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. - 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.
- 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.
Facts and Figures
- If the total requirement is 2,000kg of, say, towels in eight hours of a hotel, per hour production is 250kg.
- Thus, a minimum of three machines for washing/extracting and three nos. for drying are to be installed.
- Thus, each washer, if total time of processing one batch is one hour, should have theoretical capacity of 83kg.
- The washer/extractors selected will be of next higher capacity each, viz. 90kg or 100kg. An extra machine of 50kg will ease burden.
- If driers take 40 minutes. for drying, including loading and unloading, and it is decided to have driers of 50kg capacity each, theoretically in two hours, three batches per drier, or 150kg per two hours, or 75kg per hour will be produced. Thus, 250/75 = 3.3 or four driers will be required.
- If the production is to be completed in 16 hours, three machines of 50kg washer/extractors and two driers of 50kg or four driers of 25kg will suffice.
- The night shift will be free for emergencies – breakdown, power failure, compressor/boiler failure, or extra requirement, etc.
- Similar calculations will need to be done for bed-sheets, duvet-covers, pillow cases, napkins, table covers, banquet runners, sundries, etc. All these items will need augmentation of water-extractors and a machine known as flatwork-ironer.
- For the above example of 2,000kg towels per day, there will be 2,500kg of the flat-pressing items. Hence, now, washing requirement will be 4,500kg per eight hours and production will be 600kg per hour. Three washing machines of 200kg each and one machine of 100kg(as additional) will be needed for one shift of eight hours, or, four machines of 100kg each will be needed for two shifts of eight hours each. For guest laundry and part uniforms, 40kg machine 1 no., 25kg machine one and two domestic machines of 5kg each will be needed.
Flatwork Ironer:
- A, two roll 3.3m X 0.8m iron at 8-9 bar steam pressure, chest heated and rolls moving up and down, with chest stationery, will give 4.5kg/ min. or 270kg/hour. Hence, total working will be 10-11 hours.
- A, three roll iron will give 7kg/min or 420kg/hour. Hence, eight hours will be sufficient.
- A, one roll ironer in addition may be necessary for quality of napkins/ pillow-covers.
Uniforms:
There will be 10% (max.) of total, and for 4,500kg of other linen, these will be 450-500kg or 1,200-1,400 garments. Let us assume, there are max. shirts / trousers and some jackets, saris, suits, blouses, etc.
A typical load may be:
100 – cook jackets - 30 – chef jackets
- 130 – chef trousers
- 80 – aprons
- 130 – scarves
- 100 – kitchen dusters
- 40 – sarees
- 40 – jackets for suits
- 40 – suit trousers
- 40 – blouses
- 100 – executive garments
- 200 – shirts
- 200 – trousers
- 70 – sundries
- 1300 – total nos.
Thus, the following machines will be required:
- one dry-cleaning machine of perc of 16kg, three tank capacity
- A set of steam-presses – three utility + two mushroom with two vacuum units
- one steam-air-form finisher
- two steam vacuum tables
- one set of hot press of two mushroom and 1 utility
- one cuff-collar press
- one extra tumble drier for drying or conditioning of 25kg
- two hot iron tables for touchup(5’x2.5’x2’10”)
It will also need:
- A compressor of 75cfm at 80110psig and stand-by
- A boiler of two tonnes capacity and 1 stand-by
- A chiller plant for dry-cleaning machine
- A spotting board for stains
- A scrubbing table
- Two nos. 25kg washer-extractor (for guest garments)
- One complete folder for flatwork ironer
- Area = approx. 4,500sqft to 5,500sqft excluding boiler/ compressor/ water softener/RO/ water storage.
- Trolleys required – 200 litres capacity – 12 nos.
- Laundry delivery trolleys – 4 nos.
- Hanger rods – 250rft.
- Small area for maintenance recordkeeping / spares etc.
- Packing area & pigeon holes/racks/ desks
- Marking area
Machinery
For Commercial Laundry/ Industrial Laundry:
Commercial processing retail garments – for 500 nos./day
- Washing Machines = 25kg x 2
- Dry-cleaning Perc = 12kg x 1, 3 tanks chiller plant
- Steam Press = 2 Utility + 1 Mushroom with vacuum unit with steam iron attachment
- Form Finisher = 1 no.
- Cuff & Collar (hot) = 1 no.
- Utility Hot Press = 1 no.
- Mushroom (hot) = 2 nos.
- Steam Vacuum Tables = 2 nos.
- Bagging machine
- Scrubbing Table = 1 no.
- Boiler = 2 nos. upto 300kg/hour
- Compressor = 2 nos. of 20cfm
Accessories
- Rod rft = 80-100ft + 50ft
- Trolleys to hang garments etc = 8000
- Tables for sorting = 4 nos.(SS top)
- Voltage stabiliser = 1 no.
- Capacitance for pf = 1 per machine
- Space = 4000sqft (optimum)
- Vehicle parking bay and loading/ unloading facility
- Storage of fuel (space) = one week to one month
- Storage space for chemicals & packing material
- ETP required
- Toilet facilities @ 1 no. for every 15 staff
- Packing & forwarding area with pigeon holes & desks
Management
- To know more about family, if possible
- Selection procedure to follow
- Induction in all areas
- Training in 2 areas to start with
- To have communication on daily basis
- To have job chats
- To have first-aid kit and box
- Fire fighting training
- Counselling for staff and to be as transparent as possible
- To convince and communicate policies of management
- To maintain discipline
- To see that job description is followed totally and reward system instituted
- To encourage staff to have crosstraining in either their dept. or any other dept.
- To encourage staff to serve social cause
- To check health parameters on a regular basis
- To encourage for innovation
- To have stock taking of linen and inventory of chemicals and packing done every month/week respectively
- To have overview of maintenance of machinery
- All other points as mentioned in the beginning of article, except machinery & area.