CHICAGO — Brad Houchin has been in the laundry and linen industry for just three years, with the Chickasaw Laundry Service Uniform Distribution Center in Oklahoma.
However, in that brief time, he has enrolled in and completed his CLLM and RLLD certifications through the Association for Linen Management (ALM).
Also in that time, Houchin oversaw the expansion of the facility from a commercial laundry to an industrial laundry. The plan had been put into place before he arrived, and shortly after, the company purchased a tunnel washer, an additional ironer/finishing line and several other key pieces of equipment.
“We began operations in February of this year,” Houchin says. “As I like to say about opening a new industrial laundry, ‘It is one of the greatest learning experiences of my life that I hope to never repeat.’”
Before becoming manager of the facility, Houchin was a customer of the facility. He managed the uniform department at a casino.
“When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at the chance to be a part of a facility that had a proven track record of quality and service,” he says.
Joshua Briggs and Brandon Marsh have similar stories.
Briggs is director of linen services, mailroom and courier services at Charleston (W.Va.) Area Medical Center. He worked in safety for about six years, followed by time with a homebuilder, an aluminum manufacturer and Disney. He then transitioned into employee benefits for about a year and a half, and from there became an HR generalist. Briggs worked in that field a little more than a year before getting into linen services.
“I was told about the position and took the opportunity to get into management,” he says.
Marsh, who has been regional laundry and linen manager for Providence Health and Services in Portland, Ore., for the past two years, started in environmental services during school and had experience cleaning medical office buildings. After completing his education, he took a position in laundry and linen at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
“While in linen, I was fortunate to have a supervisor that mentored me and gave me the opportunity to learn all facets of the business. To expand my skill base, I was promoted to a supervisor position in environmental services,” Marsh says. “When the linen manager position became available, I jumped at the opportunity."
Houchin, Briggs and Marsh are working to become the laundry leaders of the future. While all three are still learning and growing in their positions, they have ideas that they hope will impact the laundry and linen industry.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS
It’s no surprise that these next-generation launderers are keen on using new technologies to improve laundry function. Houchin has already introduced some new technology at his facility.
“Things I had to track manually at my previous facility are now being tracked through automation and technology, and the benefit is immeasurable,” he says. “Whether it’s something as detailed as tracking production in real time, or something more simple like the benefit of having flatscreens at each sorting window that display the product/customer/weight/production rate, the benefits are significant and are necessary in order to be competitive and streamline production to maximize quality and service.”
Even Briggs is amazed at how much technology is used in laundry and linens.
“I think the production software and the many new types of processing equipment have great potential to aid profitability,” he says. “You need to find the right blend of automation and manpower, but there is a lot out there that can help.”
Technology that Houchin already sees making an impact on the industry includes labor-tracking software; software that measures product finishing by customer, product type, time and other variables; and dryers with operations based on temperature rather than time to increase drying efficiency.
One area of technological advancement that excites both Houchin and Briggs is RFID—radio-frequency identification.
“The RFID feature could revolutionize the industry,” says Houchin. “It’s not too difficult to imagine auto sorters picking product via RFID or other tracking software and sorting it by product type, tracking and processing the inventory through automation from the moment it is unloaded until it is wrapped and loaded for delivery. This could lower labor cost, limit the human-error element, and increase consistency and quality.”
Marsh works more on the distribution side of linen, and he believes there are not as many new technologies for distribution as there are on the processing side. However, he does know technology is important.
“I feel that technology is great if utilized correctly,” he says. “You can have all the technology in the world but if the user is not trained and held accountable … proper education and training to the end-user is crucial to be successful.”
THE FUTURE
When it comes to the future of the laundry and linen industry, Briggs and Marsh each have solid goals.
“I just want to make the department a better place to work,” Briggs says. “If I can impact the industry as a whole, that would be great, too.”
“My career goal is to have Providence be recognized as a leader in linen distribution and (to) educate other facilities on best practice,” says Marsh, who is working on earning his CLLM and RLLD certifications.
Houchin says that, right now, he’s “just a sponge.” He’s learning all he can through course materials, industry experts, vendors, customers and any other reliable source.
“I can say this, my career path has gone from being a 12-year combat veteran of the Marine Corps to managing a retail paint facility, from working on the production line at a world-class tire manufacturer to managing two departments at the largest casino in the world,” he says.
“While I value each of those experiences and wouldn’t trade them for the world, I am very excited to be a part of this industry and hope that whatever the future of the industry holds, I will have the privilege of being a part of that future.”
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