Work handling

Productive, safe and ergonomic

2 April 2008



Well-designed systems for moving goods round a laundry can help improve productivity and make life pleasanter and safer for operators. Manufacturers of both automated and manual products detail developments


Increased productivity has long been a goal in the laundry industry. This has led to an increased degree of automation of the processes involved, particularly in the finishing area where machines are increasingly used to take over the feeding, folding and even the checking functions.

Automation also applies to the way goods are moved round the plant and to tracking goods as they move from process.

However, there other aspects to consider when it comes to making the work environment pleasanter and work handling easier. Chief amongst these are ergonomics and employee health and safety.

Laundry loads are heavy, especially when wet, so trolleys and cages need features like auto-lift and shapes that avoid sharp corners incorporated into their design.

But in highly automated large laundries, conveyor systems are the key to moving goods at speed.

Jensen’s Metricon conveyor is a modular system used to move washed garments between work-stations. It is designed so that it can be adapted, using standard components, to individual plant sizes and layouts and can be expanded as needed.

Within the family there are several variants that will suit different applications.

Compact: This is a space-saving system for small to medium laundries with production rates of up to 1,000 garments per hour.

Recirculation: With a sorting capacity of up to 2,000 garments/hour, this is intended for medium-size plants. It allows garments to be sorted by an individual wearer, as well as by garment type and size. Garments can be sorted 1 – 3 times, depending on the degree required.

Cascade: This has three individual stages and provides a high volume solution with rates up to 7,000 garments per hour. The garments can pass through three sort stages where in-depth sorting down to individual wearers is needed.

The SpeedSort combines the advantages of the three systems.

It is space-saving, it uses the recirculation principle, and the high speed components of the Cascade.

It sorts garments once or twice according the depth of sort required and can handle up to 3,000 pieces/hour.

The Metricon systems are fed from primary storage and a high capacity sorting system directs garments to the correct exit.

The logistics are important. The Metricon control system uses industrial PCs and links with a database supplying details that allow all garments in the system to be tracked as they move through the plant.

Metricon Live is a portable system that links to the Metricon system from any point in the laundry, so minimising the time needed for solving any problems.

Bagged

Kannegiesser’s Supertrack monorail system is well established. Monorail bag systems have been used for many years but Supertrack is said to offer launderers a total service, particularly those handling customer-owned goods. It is used with the modular honeycomb sorting system to increase both efficiency and throughput.

Automatic flaps beneath each sorting chute allow the batch holding bag to unload without interrupting the sorting process.

Batches of laundry are held in transit banks of storage lines and brought to the washers in a sequence that matches the capacity and availability of the dryers.

With any work handling system, the logistics are vital. The Supertrack is managed by the bespoke Trackview software, running under Microsoft windows. Trackview is a graphics-based control system which provides an overview of the monorail layout.

Another demonstration of the importance of logistics was seen at the 2007 in-house exhibition.

This showed how a well-designed system can reduce labour and also provide accurate sorting for finished flatwork.

With the right ID and tracking systems in place, several finishing lines can feed onto a single conveyor layout leading to an assembly point.

Each item is identified as it moves onto the conveyor, and will appear on a viewscreen next to the end-of line operator.

The order in which the work arrives is not important as the operator can see which customer an item belongs to and load it into the appropriate cage.

Pre-sorted cages of linen can then be sent to the dispatch area, saving time here. The logistics of such an operation are taken a stage further by linking conveyor layouts into management systems that will track the linen throughout the whole laundering and finishing process, monitor productivity and provide reports in both real time and historically.

In the loop

A compact garment handling system is another recent development from Kannegiesser. Based on the Simplex Plus technology, the Loop is designed for medium operations and allows garments to be sorted by a single classification, or by several.

Garments can be returned sorted by sets, according to the individual wearer. It can handle up to 2,500 garments sorted by a single parameter. A more complex sort will handle from 500/hour.

Trolleys and cages

Many laundries use trolleys to move linen round the plant, sometimes to complement conveyor systems. Linen cages are used both within the plant and in taking goods to and from delivery vehicles.

Design is no less important here than it is in automated conveyor and rail systems.

Bryant Plastics has been designing laundry handling equipment for over 30years and has worked alongside laundry managers to develop products that are both easy to use and take safety considerations into account.

The company produces a self-levelling barrow that is available in various sizes and colours.

This allows barrows to be colour coded according to the type of work – for example, red for soiled linen, blue for clean.

A high-backed version has been designed for use alongside a conveyor system. The high back and sloping sides allow the barrow to be left unattended without risking linen slipping on to the floor.

The spring-loading unit used in self-levelling barrows reduces operator fatigue and the risk of back injuries.

In addition to standard designs, the company has also produced customised models such as one produced for a hospital laundry.

This was designed so that when the soiled bags were loaded into the trolley, any needles trapped in the linen fell through the top section into a lower drawer. This could then be pulled out and the needles safely removed.

The company has also developed a range of plastic linen cages, which, like the trolleys, can be colour coded. They can be fitted with a self-levelling device and have kick-plates on the rear to help when moving the cage over a kerb. There are holes to protect the user’s hands as they move the trolley through narrow doorways.

The plastic walls and cover conceals the linen from view, so that hotels – in particular five-star establishments – can use them to move linen around without risking guests seeing piles of dirty linen.

Take the lift

Victory Workwear, the Aldershot-based commercial laundry, found a space-saving solution to moving garments between the ground floor wash-room and the first floor where the finishing lines and storage areas are situated.

It installed a Mezz Lift from Penny Hydraulics. This is a robust platform lift that can move loads up to 300kg between two floors. It is claimed to be a cost effective and safe way of meeting manual handling regulations and reducing the risk to employees.

A single person can handle the whole process without having to lift loads manually. The installation does not require a floor pit.

It has a lifting speed of 0.5m/second, and covers the 3metres between the two floors at Victory Workwear in 6seconds.

Washed garments are transferred to the first floor in tubs. After being finished, the goods are packed into roll cages and moved back to the ground floor dispatch area.

The laundry also has a rail system for moving goods, but the lift allows a greater variety and of types and size of load.




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