“We had a heavy process of the soiled side sorting, and we wanted to avoid putting our hands in all the pockets of the laundry. It takes an incredibly long time to check your pockets, and at the same time, we need to avoid employees getting hurt by needles, scissors, or other sharp things that hide in the pockets. We have been close, but we can avoid that with the new setup. Today we scan the garments before we sort them,” says Kenn Ivan Kjellberg about the X-ray scanner that Victor Vask bought from Inwatec in Odense.
Costly errors can be avoided
Victor Vask’s customers include, among others, Bornholm’s regional hospital, home care, dairies, the fishing industry, defense, and civil defense. This means that the pockets on the workwear can hide dangerous objects, but also otherwise harmless items that can damage the clothes in the washing process.
“We are terrified of pens and permanent markers in our pockets. It can quickly cost DKK 10,000 (1,339 €) in replacement value to replace the damaged garments, and on top of that, we have administrative costs and expenses for re-washing. Overall, I would estimate that an overlooked ballpoint pen could easily cost us DKK 11,000 (1,475 €),” estimates Kenn Ivan Kjellberg.
The laundry owner cites three parameters as the decisive factors for Victor Vask acquiring an X-ray machine:
“Our investment is primarily done for economic and working environmental reasons. But there is also an environmental aspect to it as the X-ray machine can save us from throwing out 100 kilos of damaged clothing when we avoid pens in the machines. And that part is equally important to us,” he emphasizes.
After installing the new system, the light table is only used for de-tangling the incoming garments. The pockets are automatically checked by the X-ray.
Technology paves the way for developments
Victor Vask’s X-ray machine is fed manually, and the garments are manually sorted once they have passed through the scanner. Kenn Ivan Kjellberg says that the current laundry production does not make an investment in automatic sorting profitable for the present, but that it is a possible upgrade in the future.
The director states that he and his colleagues always keep an eye on the development potential of the market. That was the reason why he approached Inwatec director Mads Andresen in the first place.
“At Victor Vask, we like to invest in new technology that improves production and working conditions. When I read about Inwatec’s solution, I contacted Mads to find out if we could benefit from it. It was in the fall of 2018. Shortly after that, we received a visit from Inwatec, and I visited Odense with two employees who tried to operate the machine in real life. They were also very positive, and that made it easy for us to decide,” says Kenn Ivan Kjellberg.