LINEN MANAGEMENT SOLUTION

Background

Our clients is one of the world’s largest providers of textile rental and hygiene services solutions, listed on Euronext. Present in 27 countries across Europe and Latin America, it employs 50,000 professionals currently at 460 production and service centers, with more than 400,000 clients worldwide. Clients laundry center is faced with the handling of thousands of customers’ workwears, towels, tablecloths and bed sheets every day. As a result, it is a huge challenge for inventory management and laundry process tracking.

CHALLENGES

1. There are many kinds of linen, large number of linens of different types from hotels, hospitals, bathing places and linen rental companies. and the traditional sorting method requires a lot of labor and time cost, which is inefficient and prone to errors;

2. Due to the complexity of the business, many of the items handled are missing every year, causing huge losses to the company;

3. For special customers such as hospital linen tasks, due to fear of cross-infection, some statistics on the number of linen to be washed cannot be carried out, and commercial disputes with customers are likely to occur during handover;

4. Each step of the washing process cannot be accurately monitored, and it is easy to miss treatment links;

5. The washed linen cannot be accurately classified, and the minimum safety stock quantity of each linen cannot be accurately arranged.

6. It is impossible to effectively track and manage the washing process, washing times, inventory status and valid classification of each linen.

OUR SOLUTIONS

1. Intelligent management

Based on RFID technology, through GIOT UHF smart handheld terminal equipment, Automatic data collection for the data of linen washing, handover, in and out of storage, automatic sorting, inventory counting, etc.

2. Visualization

Real-time upload of network data to the background system, real-time grasp of the status of each link of linen circulation, real-time statistics of washing times, washing costs, rental quantity and rental costs of each customer, etc., to realize the visualization of the whole process of washing management.

3. Tracking management

It can effectively track the information of each link of each linen and the corresponding responsible person, effectively reducing the occurrence of loss and theft, and reducing unnecessary economic losses of enterprises.

Solution

GIOT empowers our client with its UHF RFID reader for intelligent laundry management of linens. Firstly, a RFID laundry tag is sewed on each piece of linen. The laundry staff with GIOT RFID Reader scans UHF laundry tags on linens to capture data of flows like receiving, transfer, sorting, put-away, inventory counting of linens. Meanwhile, the detailed data of each process is collected automatically and uploaded to the back-end system via wifi in real time. It helps laundry managers grasp the real-time status of each link of the cloth circulation, including washing times, washing costs, the quantity of linen rental and expenses of each client. The deployment of GIOT H7 PLUS with its self-developed RFID module enables the visibility of laundry management to provide real-time data support for scientific management of enterprises.

Effects

With the application of RFID readers, it automatically identifies linens and supports data collection in bulk, taking place of manual identification, which greatly enhances the efficiency and accuracy of sorting. The working task that used to be completed with hours by several workers together, can be finalized by one person with a few minutes now, which significantly improves the working efficiency and cuts down labor costs of linen sorting.

Using H7PLUS, the laundry worker accurately counts cleaning times of the linens, and the data is uploaded to the system for further analysis, which can effectively predict the service life of each piece of linen. Then the laundry worker can plan ahead to make timely replacement of linens, with the purpose of ensuring a necessary stock level, which reduces the replenishment time caused by the loss or damage of linens.

During the process of in-put and out-put of the warehouse, GIOT UHF RFID reader can be deployed to collect real-time data of linens At the same time, the inventory data is uploaded to the back-end system that enables a full view of dynamic inventory data at a glance. It simply helps client to achieve the visibility of inventory management with high efficiency.

Moreover, the perfect combination of GIOT H7PLUS and its application system can effectively track the information of each piece of cloth and the corresponding person in charge. When the cloth is misplaced or lost, managers can trace the time and position of the last disappearance with RFID, so as to discover and handle it properly in time. It effectively reduces the risks of losses and theft, avoiding unnecessary economic losses.