NEW SYSTEM LAUNDRY – Portland, Oregon

A SOFTROL PPS Helps Existing Plant add Capacity Without Adding Equipment

Situation: 

New System Laundry was expecting a significant increase in new business.  They were looking at options for expanding the capacity of the plant.

Objective: 

Increase the throughput of the existing plant and equipment and keep investment in new equipment as low as possible.

Results: 

Softrol installed a PPS - PulseNet Productivity System - with ten PPS workstations to report machine throughput and operator efficiency in real time.  Both operators and supervisors were able to see performance in real time and could make adjustments to equipment speeds and operator standards without waiting until the end of the day.  Results were so good that New Systems purchased eight more PPS workstations six months later.

Project Details: 

New System Laundry was expecting a significant increase in new business and was looking at options for expanding the capacity of the plant.  They wanted to make sure they were maximizing output of the current plant before they invested in more capital equipment.  Softrol Systems proposed a ten workstation PulseNet Productivity System that was installed on two five-lane ironers.

In addition, Softrol provided a Message Center that allows both machine operators and supervisors to see machine and operator performance at a glance, in real time.  Management could readily see which employees were working below standard, or creating a bottleneck.  This allowed management to make adjustments in the plant without waiting until the end of the day to see production results.

An employee “smart card” allowed the supervisor to know exactly which employee was operating the equipment, and measure performance.  The performance of all ten employees could be seen in real time at the same time.  Supervisors could see the effectiveness of increasing machine cycle times and increasing work standards during the day, without waiting until the end of the day to see results.  Both employees and supervisors worked together to increase throughput of the plant. 

New System Laundry supervisors saved a significant amount of supervisory time by being able to glance at the message center and see the location and size of any production problem.  Further, the supervisors saved time by not having to write or enter data for management reports…………. PPS automatically produced reports for daily production and daily worker performance.  Any New System manager could also access the real-time PPS reports from their office PC and determine how efficiently the plant was running. 

Bill Wardle, Operations Manager, and Mark Rawlinson, President, liked the PulseNet Productivity System so much that they ordered eight more PPS devices for the rest of their equipment: two large-piece ironers, one towel folder, one garment tunnel with three hanging stations, one triple buck sheet press, and one triple buck lab coat press.  They also ordered two more Message Centers for easy shop floor monitoring of performance.

Said Mark, “Installing Softrol’s PPS equipment makes great business sense.  The availability of information and statistics for our people and equipment has provided significant value to our operations.  The PulseNet Productivity System is a sound investment for any company looking to improve performance.”