RICHMOND, Ky. — With all of the challenges facing laundries today, from labor issues to inflation, it’s vital for operations to be able to provide quality goods as efficiently as possible.
Laundry chemistry can be a key component in the process.
Four chemical company representatives shared strategies for maximizing the outcomes of chemical usage in laundry operations during the recent Association for Linen Management (ALM) webinar Chemical Solutions.
REDEFINING THE WASH PIE FOR COST SAVINGS
Roy Praechter, vice president of research and development for WSI (Washing Systems) in Loveland, Ohio, started by redefining the wash pie to save overall operational costs for a laundry plant.
The wash pie consists of time, temperature, chemical action and mechanical action, which have to be balanced to produce the optimal quality in a laundry operation.
“The most important part of that pie, at least from our standpoint as chemical suppliers, is the chemical action part,” says Praechter. “It’s also the most complex component of the pie to find what chemicals are used in that process. The chemicals must target the classification that’s being processed, whether it’s industrial, healthcare, food service.”
He adds that the laundry has to be aware of the soils on the textiles (e.g., hydrocarbon oils, vegetable oils, etc.) and the type of textiles being processed (cotton or synthetic).
“There are a lot of influencing factors into what goes into the chemical action part of the wash pie,” Praechter points out. “Obviously, we have to take into account engineering and maintenance and what’s going on in the plant, soil sorting and loading. Obviously, every plant is different.
“The soils are different, they load different and each one has its own specific chemical delivery mechanism. The chemical supplier usually has their own proprietary system that they’re using to deliver those chemicals.”
So, Praechter speculates, what happens if a laundry could rely on the chemical piece of the pie more and reduce the other segments?
“We could probably impact the overall operation of the plant by doing that,” he says. “What I mean is chemical can do so much more, and we can speed up things, lower temperatures, and decrease mechanical action and still get the same good quality.”
And when it comes to typical operational costs for a laundry, chemical is usually very small when compared to labor, textile purchases, utilities and other costs—as low as 2% of operating costs.
“But it can impact those other areas quite significantly,” shares Praechter.
First, increased chemicals can reduce the time factor, which can affect many other areas of operational costs.
“If time can be decreased, we can impact payroll,” he points out. “You’ll get goods out faster. You’ll have less effect on textile life as the garments and textiles aren’t in the washer as long. You have less utilities, and you can possibly defer capital expenses because you increase the capacity of your plant by simply decreasing the time for processing goods.”
Lower temperatures can also affect textile life and utilities (less gas needed for heat, less water used, etc.). Decreasing mechanical action again improves textile life and capital expenses since both the goods and the equipment aren’t being “beat up” as much.
“Lastly, if we can impact chemicals from how we put them together and how they’re used,” Praechter says, “we can influence the health and safety of the plant, which obviously safety is a very large segment of what we do. We want to have all our employees safe.
“We also want to have the best environmental footprint that we can put out for our customers and for ourselves and for textile life. The less harsh chemicals will affect textile life as well.
“So obviously if we increase the chemical reaction and decrease some of these other things, we can make a significant impact on these other areas.”
Praechter says that new chemistry goals include enhanced cleaning quality and decreased formula runtime decreases overall water usage. There are gas and energy savings, increased fabric life and increased environmental benefits.
“There’s actually less deliveries of either packaged goods or bulk because there’s less chemistry involved with the entire process,” he points out. “So, we’re taking trucks off the road and also just using less chemicals, again with employee safety, less contact with very hazardous chemicals, and we’re still generating hygienically clean garments and textiles.
“Chemistry can do more, and we verified very big benefits from doing this, and still remain a very small portion of the cost and influencing the total operation.”
Check back Thursday for Part 2 on bioactive/enzyme performance activators.
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