The best way to maximise ROI in commercial linen management is to improve productivity and reduce costs is to make small, steady improvements to the production process to generate large-scale benefits in the long run.
This is known as continuous improvement and can be defined as the ongoing improvement of products and services through incremental and breakthrough improvements. The keyword here is continuous; rather than making big structural changes to the production process.
Continuous improvement is about making small gradual changes to the ongoing process, reviewing results, and tweaking the process to experience gradual improvements.
Making continuous improvements to the linen management process is critical for maximising ROI on management operations. In this article, we break down how you can implement continuous improvement in your linen rental service company.
Implementing
continuous improvement in linen management
If you have never established a process of continuous improvement in your linen rental service firm, then you would know that the challenge is trying to measure the process. Linen flows so quickly through the process that it can be difficult to answer critical business questions related to productivity and efficiency. Here’s how you can resolve the issue.
Establish a
basic pattern and set of standards
Before setting a standard for continuous improvement, you need to set a baseline for standards as well as grasp the basic pattern of how the company is collecting and processing linen.
While the process is different for each linen rental service company, it is best to assess linen load and volume at the start where it is brought into the premise, another point is post-wash and drying where the linen is set aside for storage, and at the point where the linen is carted out of the company.
This is where RFID tags become useful because they can relay real-time data to your BI systems and tools to give you the most accurate, up-to-date information on your regular processes. Having this information would make it easier to establish quality standards and a basic pattern, which would help set a baseline for continuous improvement.
Replace manual processes with automation
Manual processes tend to
bog down linen management by delaying productivity and raising costs through
errors. However, critically it makes the process of continuous improvement
harder because it becomes harder to measure the baseline for productivity in an
objective quantitative manner.
Hence, to resolve this
problem and set an easy, effortless continuous improvement, then consider
replacing manual processes with automated systems. For example, instead of
having staff conduct linen counting manually (and come into contact with soiled
linen), you can use RFID tags to replace manual counting processes and feed
systems with a continuous stream of data.
This data can be the
lynchpin for several metrics that would give you a window into where linen
rental service firms are performing and where they will be struggling. You can
use this data to make continuous improvements to internal processes to squeeze out
more ROI in the future.
Set timed
audits at regular intervals
Conducting a continuous audit can help you determine where your company is going and what can be done in the future. Conducting audits at regular intervals can help you make use of the data that you have been collecting over a specific timeframe.
Establishing timed audits allows you to get an accurate idea of your processes. The more data you collect and analyse, the more accurate an idea you will get of your current linen management processes. You can either focus purely on data collected by your systems or complement that assessment with that sample of linen at different production stages to assess quality.
Following a scheduled audit can help you quickly determine both major and minor structural weaknesses within the process. You can expose any points where productivity is getting delayed, identify areas where linen service can be completed faster or where costs can be reduced.
Furthermore, conducting an audit can help you catch small issues that could grow into major problems before they could grow out of control. This would help you take a more proactive stance on fixing issues before they undermine productivity.
Building a
more productive and efficient management process
If you are looking to turn linen management into a more efficient process that gets more work done while reducing costs, then you need to invest in continuous improvement.
However, there is no one-off solution to make small incremental improvements to the process. You must consider technology and management processes as well as set up a schedule that uses technology and management together to identify opportunities to make significant improvements to your process.
