How to use RFID to Control Shrink of Towels, Bedding, and Linens

Any business with a massive laundry inventory of towels, bedding and linens — like an industrial laundry, commercial cleaner, hospital or hotel — faces very real productivity challenges. One of the most obvious challenges relates to efficiency in tracking items and keeping shrink to a minimum. In order to function ideally, laundry facilities also need reliable inventory data, optimization of lifecycle management, and elimination of potential cross-infection at hospitals. One way to achieve all of these goals is through automatic garment identification via RFID.

How RFID is Deployed at a Laundry Facility

When RFID is successfully deployed at a laundry facility, it might look something like this: each item is individually tagged with a strong and durable Century RFID tag, which allows for automated sorting and ensures accurate delivery. Later, the clean laundry is scanned with RFID readers and given a delivery route based on the day's requirements. This prevents the need to shelve inventory manually, which saves money by preventing the need to acquire additional staff and storage space. RFID further allows the option for laundry to be loaded in delivery sequence, which makes the delivery to the customer happen faster and less expensively.

Reduced Shrink and Other Benefits

An RFID system tracks each piece of laundry individually as opposed to traditional methods that only track laundry via bulk weight figures. RFID ensures that every single piece of laundry is accounted for. This allows for real-time visibility over your linen inventory both in-house and at customer sites, which in turn leads to reduced inventory shrink.

Additional benefits include accurately tracking the usage and life-cycle durability of all laundry items, linearizing stock rotation, and reducing overall onsite inventory levels (PAR). These benefits provide hospitals, laundry facilities and hotels with the greatest possible ROI across their linen inventory.

RFID technology is particularly beneficial for small to mid-sized industrial laundry facilities, as it provides a competitive edge and allows them to grow their operations without a huge employee salary investment. RFID helps laundry facilities control costs through the efficient use of staff and resources that they already have in place.

RFID Laundry Solutions Pay for Themselves

Although laundry facilities will need to spend money to invest in RFID tech initially, the technology pays for itself in the end because laundry facilities are able to reduce loss and cost while boosting the speed and efficiency of their operations. In this respect, RFID solutions are the logical choice for modern laundry facilities.  Click to view our free report on “How RFID is Changing Commercial Laundry”.

Century RFID provides RFID tags made specifically for laundry applications. Our TexSilicon Slim fabric laundry tag is designed to endure high pressure wash cycles, laundry and dry cleaning chemicals, and sterilizing heat and pressure. At just 80 x 11 mm, its ultra-thin design allows it to virtually disappear when sewn into a hem. Its durability makes it a perfect choice for reliably tracking towels, uniforms, linens and other textiles.