Many of us are happy that 2021 is behind us. But what lies ahead is unknown.
In this three-part series industry leaders have shared their concerns for the industry, advice for operators, and their COVID experiences.
See Part 2 here and Part 3 here
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Ty Acton
President
Tingue
What are your concerns for the industry?
My concerns for the laundry industry are continued labor challenges and the ability to secure supplies to effectively process linen.
What advice do you have for operators as they begin a new year?
Try to effectively manage inventory relying on vendor partners to secure items that continue to be in short supply.
How have you overcome COVID challenges?
We continue to have challenges related to COVID, primarily in the supply of high temperature textiles and labor. We substantially increased starting wages in Q3 and are more proactive when ordering raw materials, especially from Europe and Asia.
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David NetusilManager-Sales Support and MarketingJENSEN-GROUP
What are your concerns for the industry?
At the moment, our greatest concern are the difficulties our entire industry is facing with broken supply chains in multiple areas; with electronics leading the way, and the end is an unknown. This makes future planning more challenging.
What advice do you have for operators as they begin a new year?
Supply chain shortages and inconsistent freight times are causing longer lead times which should be factored into capital equipment procurement planning.
How have you overcome COVID challenges?
We at JENSEN have been diligent with promoting vaccines and boosters, continual temperature checks, the wearing of masks when necessary, etc., which has been very effective in keeping employees safe and healthy. From a business level point of view, we have been quite fortunate. Our order intake has been very strong.
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Ken Tyler HRLLD, CFM, CPCM, FAC 3, PMP
CEO
TYCORPS International (VOSB)
What advice do you have for operators as they begin a new year?
As years progress the utilization of criteria such as life cycle costing are not receiving the attention necessary to build or add to a facility. There should be more evaluation by the purchasing manager to things such as life cycle, energy use anticipation, number of FTE required to operate the system, management criteria, training for management and employees of equipment. Purchasing managers should know their laundry and its needs.
Specifications and quality assurance provisions tied to the development and installation of new laundry systems as well as the initial capital investments required, i.e. construction and installation cost need, should be thoroughly examined. Also to be considered are the systems used to make a laundry run efficiently such as thermo fluid, water, electric and steam etc.
Educational institutions who claim to be experts in laundry and linen operations need to spend sufficient time educating managers and supervisors in the development of internal criteria when equipment/systems are being planned. I would only hope those responsible would ask these questions on internal management before resources are allocated
It’s time to reinvent processes, living in a status quo environment will only backfire long term.
