In the Dutch laundry company Rentex Awé, there is no room for stagnation. Even when everything in the production line functions as it ought to, the family behind the business focusses on evolution and enhancement to keep the competitors behind.
“We work continuously on improving every part of the business, and that means we have to focus on three different tracks. First of all, we must work on how to raise the quality of our product. Secondly, we can better the productivity, and third, we need to improve the work environment,” explains Stef de Win when in Odense with his father, Erik de Win, to visit Inwatec and learn about the possibilities of further automatization of Rentex Awe.
“Since we seriously begun to work with automatization years ago, we redesigned the entire business line several times, and today the logistics looks completely different because of the progress in that field,” he describes.
Workforce happy with technology changes
Rentex Awe employs in the washing of work wear, linen and towels in the hospital sector, and each week 550 tonnes of garment and linen passes through the Dutch laundry in the small city of Elsloo, Limburg, where the company has its headquarters.
Until recently the soiled site sorting of 125.000 pieces of garment was done manually, but after investing in an x-ray machine from Inwatec, efficiency has had a boost and therefore the Rentex-directors now focusses on how to minimize the trivial and tough processes further.
“Robots do not need the micro breaks humans do. And even a few seconds of lacking attention a minute adds up to a lot of pieces of garment a day,” says Stef de Win, who enjoys the full support from his employees when it comes to changes in design and logistics:
“Many of these tasks aren’t very attractive to perform, why one of the positive side effects of the innovation and progress is that our employees like working with modern technology, and that way the changes also betters the work environment.”
Ink damage- and needle cuts – problems of the past
Since investing in the x-ray machine, some of the procedures formerly done became obsolete at Rentex Awe.
“Like a lot of other laundries, we had significant problems with batches of garments being destroyed by ink from overseen pens, but with the x-ray solution, we find 99.9 percent of the pens. That means that some of the procedures regarding handling, replacement and administration of destroyed garment isn’t needed on the same scale as before,” Stef de Win explains and proceeds to tell, that the same apply to damages caused by needles or scissors.
“When handling hospital garments we have had employees cutting themselves on needles. Primarily in the in-sorting but also when putting the washed clothes on hangers because the needles passed through the entire process. Since installing the x-ray, we haven’t had a single incident. Of course, this also improves the efficiency dramatically, when problems are handled automatically,” notes Stef de Win.
Progress requires innovation
At the recent visit to Odense, the Rentex-owners focussed on how all handling of laundry could be done entirely automatically, but both eyes and ears were open to new input, and Stef de Win has no doubt that it is necessary if the future of the company should remain bright.
“We think of innovation every day. It is an essential part of our business, and we are aware that all processes should be modified every few years to ensure the best production, the best working environment and the highest quality of our services,” he says.