CHICAGO — One can define process engineering as designing, optimizing and managing industrial processes to operate efficiently, safely and economically.
There are benefits to documenting these processes. It provides a consistent, repeatable method of operation that can be accessed at any time and taught to new employees.
For industrial laundries, where repeatable, teachable outcomes are vital, process engineering documentation can keep an operation working efficiently with consistent quality for its customers.
LAUNDRY PROCESS ENGINEERING
David Griggs, general manager for Superior Linen Service’s healthcare division based in Oklahoma, says that process engineering in a laundry takes two forms:
- The production section of the plant process of how linen moves through your facility. This process is where Lean Six Sigma thoughts may come in. How many steps are there in the process? How many points of contact with employees are involved in the system? Then, ultimately, how many pieces does the system produce?
- The second is the power plant section involving the utilities that the process requires to effectively produce linen. This all starts with proper compressed air, soft water, an adequate supply of dry steam for the process, and a good process of returning the steam condensate back to the boiler. This process is the foundation of our production process.
David Bernstein, founder of Propeller Solutions Group in Livingston, Texas, is in his third decade of serving the laundry industry. A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, his experience includes machinery manufacturing and specification; engineering consulting; customer service and sales; laundry planning; process improvement; and operations.
For Bernstein, process engineering in a laundry is the structured design, analysis, and improvement of the various production steps that are required to move product (from soiled to clean, finished, packaged, and delivered) with maximum safety, quality and efficiency.
“It’s about more than machines; it involves the flow of work, the interaction of people and equipment, and the elimination of inefficiencies, or waste, at every stage,” he shares. “In my world, this means having laser focus on the elimination of the eight wastes of Lean: transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, overprocessing, defects, and underutilized human resources.”
Process documentation for a laundry isn’t just important, it’s “mission critical,” he believes.
“People perform best and safest when they are provided with the necessary tools, training and education,” he says. “Documentation fits hand in glove with this concept because it removes tribal knowledge (‘That’s the way we’ve always done it’) and replaces it with something that is teachable and repeatable, thereby limiting variation, inconsistency, and risk, even when staff turnover occurs.
“It also provides a baseline for measuring improvement because you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and you can’t see improvement unless you’ve documented the process and the starting point. For those facilities where compliance with regulations or certification is necessary, documented processes also protect the operation from compliance and liability concerns.”
For Griggs, the adage of ‘You can’t see the forest for the trees’ completely defines the issues of a laundry without documentation.
“If you do not monitor your processes, from steam temperature to drying times, you can slowly see your system bog down,” he points out. “You will start thinking you need more employees or machinery when, in fact, you are getting fewer items from your current equipment.
“Poorly maintained dryers can get to where they take twice as long to dry the same load as before. Setting up a baseline of how long it takes to dry items so that you can always look back on where we used to be is vital.
“The same can be said about every step in your process. You may find you are steaming longer in the wash wheel than you did before, or steam issues cause you to slow your ironers down so that the linen will dry.
“Without baseline documentation, the process times begin to grow without your knowledge.”
The challenges, according to Griggs, are 1) documentation takes time, and 2) it is not a one-time project.
“Process times should be documented and then revisited occasionally,” he says. “Employees seem to be reluctant to document all the daily process steps of machinery startups. But every employee of a company should document their daily routine in case they are somehow unavailable to work.”
For Bernstein, time and discipline are the biggest hurdles for a laundry to document its processes.
“Laundry operations are fast-paced, with pressure to meet delivery and quality expectations day after day,” he points out. “Management and supervisors often feel they can’t pause to document processes because production might suffer.
“At the same time, line employees may resist, seeing documentation as unnecessary or fearing it could expose inefficiencies. In reality, the opposite is true: by documenting, operations gain clarity, consistency and protection.”
Another critical hurdle Bernstein sees is that documentation quickly loses value if it goes out of date or if management does not ensure adherence.
“As a consulting firm, our engagements are usually time-limited, and too often when we return months or years later, we see what Lean calls a lack of control, also known as backsliding,” he shares. “Without ongoing commitment, maintenance, and regular updates, even the best documentation becomes ineffective.”
Check back Tuesday for part 2 to learn what processes should be documented.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
