The last straw

27 January 1999



European laundries are leading the way in facing the challenges of legislative constraints and price competitive markets. Philip Garner reports.


Many managers in the British textile care industry can be forgiven if they view forthcoming minimum wage legislation as the last straw likely to break the camel’s back.

After all they have had to face the stringencies of a fiercely price competive market; increasing regulatory constraint against air and ground water pollution, and in favour of environmental protection; the implementation of controllable training programmes leading to vocational qualifications; and new Health and Safety regulations.

There is also the voluntarily-imposed drive to achieve standards of quality and reliability for the services that companies offer. Add an increased labour bill to all these factors and there must be a strong temptation for many to shut shop and find easier ways of earning a living.

All is not lost, however, and British textile care industry managers could do worse than look to their EU counterparts. They have overcome similar hazards and while not all are yoked to minimum wage levels, most face high wages bill and significantly higher social security costs than in Britain.

Price competition is not unknown to them either, nor are the demands for better quality and service without extra charge from their rental customers.

Many European countries have more stringent and rigorously enforced environmental laws, the infringement of which could result in total plant closure by inspectors who arrive unheralded at the site.

European textile care managers faced these difficulties with foresight and by careful planning, good financial management and by carrying out a conversion schedule. Larger companies with prudent managements had the sense to open a contingency account which they could use to finance the conversion, albeit with help from low interest bank loans.

During the latter months of 1998, I was able to tour Germany and visit plants which had been totally converted, re-planned and re-equipped. Of the three plants mentioned here, each is family- owned and long-established. At one, the trading structure had been changed to enable the company to meet the challenges of the year 2000 and beyond.

European plants have moved from employing excessive labour to using capital intensive production methods. One company I visited has invested no less than £7 million in a new garment rental plant. Another has disposed of all its hotel linen rental volume, and turned to garment rental with more efficient production and service upgrading.

Yet another has installed the latest planned production techniques and managerial systems to maximise the efficient use of labour and cut other production costs in a move to secure its share of the competitive hotel linen rental market.

The one significant factor in each of these cases (and in those I have visited elsewhere in Europe over the past year) is that, without exception, they have moved away from a methods, production, marketing and pricing philosophy of doing the work for less than anyone else will and to hell with the quality. In Europe, the attitude is that quality, expert and economical processing are factors that can only be bought at a higher price, so long as the customers’ own production lines are not to be put into jeopardy.

I first visited plant 1 some 30 years ago. Then, as now, it was ahead of its rivals, but at that time through being equipped with the latest industrial drycleaning machines, automatically controlled and programmed for cleaning cotton and P/C industrial workwear. Industrial drycleaning machines used to be a profitable product line for major drycleaning machinery manufacturers but the fashion faded, destroyed by the demands of environmental legislation.

The company now has a new £7 million plant which handles 2900 garments per day from a wide customer base, serving from three to 700 garments per delivery. The plant uses continuous washing with water re-cycling, tunnel finisher loading with optional one journey wire hangers and robust ones for internal circulation.

Its steam tunnels are gas or steam heated with efficient three-phase finishing and low power consumption. There are automatic folding units, shrink film wrapping for folded garments, and overhead conveyor transportation.

All production stages are under total management control, with computer control at all the quality check points. Mezzanine storage holds finished work for 36 routes.

The new plant produces a high quality of work with low labour and production costs, providing regular and reliable services for demanding customers. Yet the investment ensures acceptable profit margins on all user outlets.

With its new system, the company can offer customers hanger deliveries of finished work or locker distribution, each item being identified as to wearer name and locker location at the customer’s premises. The company also satisfies the demand for all cotton garments which are press finished and hand folded.

Such high quality results and low production costs were achieved by investment in planned production and systemisation methods. The second company, too, had indulged in industrial drycleaning machines when I was there thirty five years ago: in this case, British made ones.

However, the owner took a brave decision to move out of hotel linen rental and into garments at the point when prices had dipped to an unacceptably low level and were no longer profitable.

Amazingly, the company began as a domestic laundry, went into drycleaning shops when domestic laundering began to decline, then into industrial drycleaning, cotton and P/C workwear. It was then reorientated to hotel linen rental and is now solely concerned with high standard garment rental. The family are well used to changing direction with courage and foresight.

The most recent change was made to garment rental at the top end of the market. In this plant, garments were washer-extractor processed with process water reclammation, high speed tunnel finishing, overhead conveyor work, and selective segregation to hanger or fold customer.

Plant 3 is also family-owned and managed and is long-established. Indeed, it still processes a small volume of domestic linen for its most loyal customers.

Tunnels are used for laundering the bulk of the work, with high pressure presses to reduce conditioning times, and overhead bag conveyance to work stations. Large flatwork is handled by the latest versions of a remote sheet preparing system with a state-of-the-art conveyor to an automatic feeding machine.

Installation of the automatic feeding machine has made a significant difference to profitability. This is one of the latest units from a leading German manufacturer and is unusual in that the sheets are fed from either side and centred accurately, stretched to give good leading and trailing edges, high quality finishing and precise folding. It was significant that one of the latest units from the same manufacturer for opening out bag loads of sheets into single or no more than two or three articles had also been installed. And this, too, has made a valuable contribution to improving overall production.

Since the modernisation of this department, sheet production has risen by 22%, draw sheets by 15% and duvet covers by 8%. The quality standard is sustained, and with no increase in labour costs.

Profitability of this plant is equally aided by its sophisticated management data collection system. This is used to record each operator’s workplace at any given time, earnings on an hourly basis, bonus earnings, changes of workstation, break times, and so on.

All data can be recalled at any time. The system will also give broken down costs for labour, power, water, chemicals, total costs per item, total revenue earning per kilogram per operator and much more.

Unlike in the UK, European textile care companies use machines to improve efficiency. And they use computerised systems to control production and costs, maximise labour utilisation and to provide up-to-date profit performance against cost economy throughout the working day.



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