TULSA, Okla. — Our company has enjoyed a couple of good years, which has allowed us to upgrade several pieces of equipment.
I must admit that if we had realized how much better the current crop of laundry folding equipment has improved, we would have looked a lot harder at them several years ago.
It seems like we considered all small-piece folders to be the same.
The only issue you would have encountered was losing your controls. An entire industry was built about taking old folders and upgrading the controls. We also went down this road on a few folders in the past.
Don’t get me wrong, if you have a folder that checks all your boxes for what want from it, there are good companies out there that can upgrade your controller.
The basic design for years was simple. An item blocks a photocell or whisker switch as it enters the machine and starts a timer. The timer knows when to make the first fold.
Since the speed of the folder is always constant and you don’t move where the fold point is located, there wasn’t much to it. You could literally build your own control if you had the time.
If you run the same size towels all the time this system works well, but we all want to run more than just towels on our folders. Gowns and scrubs need a little more sophistication than just making an air blast after a set delay time.
We all tried running different items, but when you figure in all the jams, I’m not sure it was faster. Admittedly this turned us off on looking at many new folders.
I can assure you the manufacturers have upped their game, and there is a clear difference between the modern folders and those of 20 years ago.
While I have my favorite vendors, there are quite a few vendors that produce good-quality machines.
Below are a few features you can expect from a new folder:
Lateral fold. In the past, folders would just give one solid air blast on both sides to produce this fold. The downfall was that too much air would create jams, and too little air would not create the fold.
Now they give multiple small air blasts that can fold over the linen without blowing it hard enough to overshoot the fold. This allows for far fewer jams and crisper folds.
Photocells placed to see strings on gowns and scrubs. When properly set up, these greatly reduce the chances of linen getting wrapped around rolls.
We all know jams destroy belts and frustrate the operators. Reducing the chances of linen wrapping around rolls lowers the operating cost of the machine since you will have fewer repairs.
Automatic sorting of items. This has been great for us. However, I do want to caution you that there needs to be a fairly large difference in sizes.
You may have three or four different sizes of gowns or towels, but if they are within 1 to 2 inches of length, don’t expect the machine to distinguish between them, unless you are using RFID chips.
RIFD (radio-frequency identification) chips are another feature of newer machines. You can program machines to read the chips and sort by size or scrub tops versus scrub pants. The operator doesn’t have to presort before they run the items.
The bottom line is don’t settle for your folder not performing exactly how you want it to.
Your current machine may not be capable of giving you the results you want. However, there is most likely a machine out there that will.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
