The use of UHF RFID laundry tags to help linen rental operations and customers control costs is becoming more common across all industries.
RFID technology is smoothing the way for linen management in healthcare facilities, with some hospitals across Europe deciding to use smart cabinets or room-based solutions to manage scrubs and workwear. We have seen a dramatic shift from high maintenance systems such as conveyor solutions to automated RFID solutions.
Linen Management without RFID
In Venne, Niedersachsen, Germany, Ulrike Caselato’s nursing home, relies on manageable processes and controlled quality of cleaning. She prefers small local laundries to large, well-known service providers, but laundry inventory is almost always a problem. In this industry, it’s normal to have some turnover of employees. In the past, workwear would sometimes leave the company with the employees. Some team members may have also washed their uniforms at home, which of course is not allowed for hygiene reasons. It was almost impossible to prevent this from happening, as the workwear could not be clearly assigned to the appropriate employee in terms of organization. After about a year or so, the firm had to buy work clothes again – more than would be expected under normal and expected usage. This is a complex and unfortunately also an expensive issue.
Linen Management with UHF RFID Laundry Tag
Each piece of clothing for Caselato’s care team is now equipped with a UHF RFID transponder, in conjunction with a smart clothing distribution and return cabinet, which can be assigned to the appropriate wearer in the laundry management system. Each employee must register with their own contactless ID card before removing their workwear in order to open the distribution cabinet and register exactly what is being removed. The used workwear recycling station is also equipped with a UHF reader that identifies which employee is currently using which garments? What is the current cleaning cycle? Which janitor last wore the torn clothing? Who is hoarding or even stealing work clothes? Are departing employees also returning everything? Which clothing is used more frequently? What quantities and combinations are really needed? All questions that the system can find answers to with its continuous real-time inventory. What about other industries?
According to a recent report by The Caterer, a UK hospitality trade journal and website. In the UK, Elis recently signed a contract with pub giant Mitchells & Butlers that covers the supply and processing of RFID, More than 375,000 items, including tables, linens, and chef’s whites/kitchen cloths, are shipped to its more than 800 sites with the ability to deliver new inventory within three weeks. Elis will operate the company through its 43 facilities nationwide using a fleet of more than 670 vehicles. All items are tracked via RFID, giving Elis complete visibility into their usage and location, and providing better inventory control.
RFID linen tag is installed in every item of clothing. With the help of laundry RFID software tagging linen and managing linen data, each garment is recorded at receiving and logged in RFID system. In combination with the storage management module and the integrated ordering system, a complete overview of all areas of the laundry is available.
Especially, in the restaurant business, we were able to achieve considerable benefits by scanning in the goods-in and goods-out. We now know where our linen is. Thus inventory and costs can be reduced.
HUAYUAN HLT RFID Linen Tags
HUAYUAN HLT RFID linen tag is a soft, thin, flexible but durable tag, with stable and consistent performance up to 7 meters read range, accompany with adherent assets, sustaining in harsh industrial laundry processes by 200 cycles for the lifespan of the textile asset. Stitched, pocketed, or heat sealed imperceptibly installation on textile, HLT serial laundry tag can fit almost all kinds of fabric textile asset, and had been passed SGS certification of heating and bending test.