Housekeeping and laundry innovations clean up

By Marni Andrews

When Domenic Meffe opened his first motel in Toronto in 1985, he thought he'd send out the laundry to keep costs down. For three weeks the 34-room motel's brand new linen was sent out daily. In Meffe's words, "it turned out to be a complete and utter nightmare." First, staff had to count every sheet that was sent out and received. Second, the sheets and linens were arriving late about 50 per cent of the time because of weather, traffic, etc. Worst of all, 60 to 70 per cent of the linens they received back weren't even their own.

"Since we had just opened, all of our linens were new but we were receiving linens that were so old they were see through!" says Meffe, who learned a valuable lesson and now has seven Monte Carlo Inns in Southern Ontario with another under construction. "Though it was a treacherous first few weeks, it was one of the best ways for our company to learn efficiency."

Years ago, laundries were considered a "cost centre," says Joel Jorgensen, vice-president of sales and customer services at Continental Girbau, Inc. Today, with greater focus on high quality linen packages and guest comfort, hoteliers are realizing that the laundry plays a major part in maintaining quality and ensuring in-room guest comfort and a positive perception.

"Guests spend the majority of their time in the room. Linen quality is truly a way to differentiate one hotel's service from a competitive flag down the street," says Jorgensen.

Keeping laundry in house helps reduce costs as well as decrease turnaround time for guest requests, adds Graeme Evans, director of housekeeping, Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver.

One of the most critical areas of a hotel's operation is its housekeeping and, by extension, its laundry, says Rob Jackson of Harco Co. Ltd., which supplies washers, dryers, ironing and folding equipment. The laundry is one of the key areas of a hotel that can be fairly easily structured to attain maximum efficiencies. A direct benefit is reduced cost per pound of linen processed. Jackson identifies these areas: laundry design and layout (dirty linen should not cross the path of clean linen), automation (to increase production per person hour), better equipment, equipment maintenance, and green technology.

Green is good

Hotels are increasingly inviting guests to participate in linen reuse programs that lead to multiple savings on laundry costs, water and cleaning agent usage, energy usage plus extended inventory lifespan, says Dr. Gabor Forgacs of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in Toronto. With the average age of a towel measured not in weeks but in number of washes, whether this happens in three months or six months, has a great deal of impact on the cost model. The hotel reaps the actual savings plus the good PR value from being considered a responsible corporate citizen.

Forgacs says that housekeepers are the front of the line people when it comes to both selection and usage of cleaning agents and source separation of garbage that is the start of recycling and waste reduction.

Delta Hotels decided to pass along the environmental savings from linen reuse programs through a test program this spring at a small number of their properties. The Green Stay program provides guests with the option to decline housekeeping service on a daily basis in exchange for a $5 to $10 voucher towards the hotel's food and beverage outlets. Guests notify hotel staff by placing a reusable door knob hanger outside their room nightly.

"The Green Stay program allows hotels to use fewer detergents and chemicals while reducing water and energy consumption. It also helps to increase productivity by informing staff ahead of time which rooms will not require service," says Margaux Lee, public relations coordinator, Delta Hotels and Resorts.

Evans from the Fairmont Waterfront says their new 15/85 poly/cotton terry towels reduce dry time by approximately 15 per cent, which saves energy. In addition to having a better feel, the lifespan of the terry fabric is increased too.

New enzymatic cleaning formulas not only reduce the amount of hot water needed for washing but with reduced cycle times, water consumption is decreased overall. The Fairmont Waterfront saves more than 75,000 gallons of water with the new formulations, says Evans.

Chris Berry of True North Hospitality is impressed by Eco Dry Towels that can be placed in the room directly from the box, which allows hotels to skip the initial laundering process. This saves labour, energy and chemicals.

Gil Sanchez, JaniKing

"We have seen green programs come and go throughout the years but this time around it is here to stay. Housekeeping departments have started to move in the direction of green cleaning, especially for newly opened properties," says Gil Sanchez, assistant director, Jani-King International.

Tony Terlaak of Coldstream Commercial Sales Inc. has found that the environmental movement is helping sales of "all in one" combination washer/dryers. These units speed up production by eliminating the need to transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer. Plus the machine's loading door is locked during the drying cycle so that operators cannot open the door prematurely, which produces significant energy loss, says Terlaak.

Labour is key

Charles Macpherson, CEO, Charles Macpherson & Associates, which specializes in training and placement for the private residential and premier hospitality markets, is seeing from clients more attention to detail in housekeeping departments.

"It is no longer about just having a clean room. It is about putting things back in the room with what we call ‘The Housekeeper's Eye.' How are the items placed on the coffee table? How do the drapes hang? How is the bed made? How are guest items picked up and arranged for their return?" he says.

Labour shortage is one problem, says Macpherson. The larger problem is untrained staff. The room attendant who does not have regular training is a liability to the hotel. Just like a pilot has regular and yearly training sessions, so should the housekeeping department. The room attendant may spend more time with the client face to face than any hotel manager and yet they get both little respect and very little, if any, training, he notes.

Barbara Malacko, Alberta Hotel Safety Association

Barbara Malacko, program manager, Certified Health & Safety Auditor, Alberta Hotel Safety Association, gave a presentation recently in which she detailed the hidden costs involved in a typical housekeeping accident resulting from lack of training. In Malacko's example, a housekeeper slipped and fell while cleaning a bathtub and the incident ended up costing the hotel more than $1,200 when productivity costs, investigation costs, replacement costs and incident costs were all taken into account.

Language barriers and employee turnover are real issues when it comes to equipment operation and laundry management, says Jorgensen of Continental Girbau Inc. To counteract this, manufacturers are focusing on ergonomics, flexible controls that remove human error and cycle programming lockout and audit functions that ensure loads are being processed properly.

Tara Hammond of HLS Linen Services in Ottawa says that, while there is not really any labour shortage in the area, there is a high turnover in part-time and casual workers because of low wages and fluctuations in occupancy levels in area hotels.

Softmount washer from Maytag

Machinery innovations

Hotel owners are purchasing more efficient laundry equipment to conserve resources and to save money in the long run, says Steve Hietpas, national sales manager, Whirlpool and Maytag Commercial Laundry. Improved linen quality and more natural fibers have led to machinery that allows for precise programming to ensure proper laundering of each type of linen. For example, a softmount Maytag washer-extractor has very fast final spin speeds, often over 300 G-Force, which removes more water and thus leads to shorter dry times. Shorter dry times reduce labour expense because linens are processed much more quickly. A softmount does not require special flooring, nor does it need to be bolted to the floor.

"Labour can make up 50 per cent of the cost of running a laundry," explains Hietpas.

"In order to increase profitability in the laundry, you must understand where the majority of your costs come from," says Dave Phillips, sales manager, IPSO North America. "Labour costs and linen replacement costs are tops on the list."

He adds that the introduction of high quality, all cotton linens with increased thread counts has made high G-force washer-extractors the norm in hospitality.

"These linens hold more water than standard cotton-poly blends and as a result they need to spin out at higher speeds to keep drying times in line. Linens are a major investment and shortcuts in processing will invariably reduce their useful life," explains Phillips.

Dan Goldman, executive vice-president, OPL Sales, Bermil Industries, agrees that the major expenses associated with an on-premise laundry are labour (50 per cent) and linen replacement (21 per cent). The rest are utilities (13 per cent), chemicals (10 per cent) and maintenance/repair at three per cent each.

Goldman says that new Wascomat/Electrolux washers and dryers can offer appreciable savings on water, labour, energy and linen replacement costs as they have the ability to "think." One model can detect the weight of the load and adjust the amount of water needed. This can offer savings of thousands of gallons of water a year compared to underloaded batches.

Utility bill relief

Many hotels will wait to replace old equipment until they absolutely have to, and they have been surprised and pleased with the positive impact to their utility bills [of some of the new equipment], says Jay McDonald, vice-president of business development, Alliance Laundry Systems, which owns the Huebsch equipment line among others. There are many new features being added to equipment to conserve energy. Some of these are multiple (up to 30) water levels. Some machines have sensors to alert to a leak in the drain valve caused by an obstruction. If left undetected, this could waste thousands of gallons per year.

"Pressure on ADR and RevPAR have significantly increased the focus on back of the house operations. Milnor likes this trend because there is a lot of low-hanging fruit, which is to say opportunity to reduce costs," says Terry Satchwell, vice-president strategic accounts, Pellerin Milnor Corporation. "People want to know what their Total Cost of Ownership is for laundry machinery over the life of the machines, not just the initial investment."

"New product releases such as RinSave water saving technology have dramatically reduced water, sewer, labour and other costs. For example, each 60-lb. washer, processing light soil, can save up to $1,570 each year. A limited service, 110-room property could save up to $47,100 the first 15 years of use of two 60-lb. washers," says Satchwell.

He also mentions EcoSmart dryers, which use coaxial air flow through the centre of the basket rather than the periphery to evaporate moisture better, and micro-fiber cleaning rags, which offer operational savings and better performance.

Dyson Canada Ltd.'s Airblade promises to dry hands in 12 seconds, says general manager Melanie Wilde. If someone leaves a bathroom with wet hands, he/she is 1,000 times more likely to pick up other bacteria, says Wilde. The Airblade does not use heat to evaporate water from the hands; it uses a high speed sheet of air (640 km/hour) to wipe the water from the hands. The air is clean because it flows through a HEPA filter.

"The Airblade offers a housekeeping option that's a completely viable alternative to paper towels," says Wilde. "You don't have to worry about dirty paper towels all over the floor. It's green, too, because there's no heating element."

Using ozone as a disinfectant reduces hot water and chemical usage significantly, which reduces utility costs, says Susan Reynolds of Coinamatic Commercial Laundry, which offers an oxidation system product. With fewer residual chemicals in the towels and linens, they dry faster, which increases productivity. Ozone has the added benefit of killing bacteria and viruses.

Jackson of Harco Co. Ltd. promotes green technology in laundry processing through installation of ozone wash assist systems, which enables linen to be washed in cold water without chlorination and can reduce utility costs by up to 35 per cent.

RFID loss prevention

While environmental and conservation programs, proper training, and state-of-the-art machinery all contribute to the more efficient functioning of the housekeeping/laundry division of a hotel, perhaps it's also worthwhile to consider a cost centre control that's a little more old-fashioned: loss prevention. The newly opened 377-room Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in Vancouver uses an RFID (radio frequency identification device) system that literally tracks 35,000 pieces of laundry in and out of the hotel, according to Nancie Hall, director of public relations.

RFID tags help loss prevention at Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel

Younes Atallah, director of housekeeping, says that the RFID tags are placed into little pockets sewn into the seams of the textile (sheets, towels, tablecloths, bathrobes, uniforms). Each piece has its own number. As the item leaves the building, it passes by one of four readers located around the loading dock, which identifies each piece as it leaves and when it returns.

Atallah says that the system, which uses tags by Fujitsu and a software developer called Foundation Logic, was expensive to implement but that the ROI on the chipping system is expected to be only 7.1 months.