Control and manage your supplies
upplies is one of the major expense accounts
that will always run between 7 percent and 12 percent of gross
sales and is 100 percent variable. This means that supplies
always will fluctuate according to your gross volume of
business.
Supplies consumption cost will vary
according to the degree of quality work offered. The higher the
price that you charge your customers, the better the quality
that is demanded. This relates to the purchase of quality
supplies over economy supplies.
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Especially those lower-price cleaners and
the discounted, one-price cleaners, who tend to minimize their
use of detailing and packaging supplies, must practice supply
economy in order to achieve a decent profit. These operators
know that only through high volumes can their supply percentage
be a decent figure, and they know that there is a required
minimum amount of supply usage in order to make a decent
presentation of their work to their customers.
Whether your volume is high or low, or
your prices are high or low, there will always be a consumption
of supplies, and it is mandatory that supply economy and
control be exercised at all times.
However, one must keep in mind that the
cheapest price is not always the lowest cost. Cheap drycleaning
detergents contain co-solvents and require more addition than
the 100 percent pure detergents, and they don’t carry as
much moisture (hydrocarbon and petroleum).
Low gauge plastic bags tend to spread out
at the neck area, and they are harder to detach than higher
gauge plastic, causing them to be trashed rather often. Lower
gauge hangers tend to dip when used for heavy garments. Even
the cheap, paper coated hanger ties will lose their coating if
handled too roughly or reused. I could go on and on.
Use of spotting agents can be wasteful if
poured from a bottle with the wrong cap. In my career, and in
my spotting agents at Clean Shows, I used an eye dropper and a
three-ounce bottle to apply the agents to stained fabrics. The
small amount did just as good a job of stain removal as a
saturated amount. Keep all spotting bottles clean and labeled,
and use separate brushes for alkali, acid, neutral and dry.
If you are a small plant, and you or your
brother do the laundry washing and wetcleaning, you may
consider the use of powdered laundry supplies for shirts and
laundry over the more expensive liquid supplies.
The reason for this is the fact that you
or your brother will be more careful and sparing in the use of
supplies than an employed wash person.
However, if your volume is rather high
and you use an employed wash person, then you should use the
automated liquid supply system. This will avoid a
sloppy-looking wash area as well as considerable waste of
laundry supplies. Most all wetcleaning supplies are in liquid
form, however.
Try to make full loads, called “pay
loads,” since the cost of a laundry load is almost the
same whether the load is small or full weight. However, in
drycleaning, the cost does not fluctuate very much according to
the size of the load due to the high rate of solvent recovery.
But if the load is very small, the rate of solvent recovery is
not too good due to the extra cylinder volume in comparison to
its contents.
If you use all filter cartridges without
a spin disc filter, you should consider a pre-lint filter at
the filter inlet in addition to the smaller holes in the button
traps of today’s cleaning machines. If you use
perchloroethylene or hydrocarbon/petroleum solvents, you should
consider azeotroping your cartridges in the still for better
solvent recovery. Also, the pre-wash to still method will send
a good bit of insoluble soil to the still instead of to the
cartridges.
If your volume is large you should
consider purchasing supplies in large quantities in order to
get a volume discount from your distributor. In this regard it
is mandatory that you maintain a complete supply management
program similar to that used by me at my large volume plant and
in my two package plants. I used a simple form to both order
and inventory my supplies.
Since my volume was very large, and my
plant was located far from the city, I had to purchase supplies
in large amounts. Also, at that time there were many thefts by
employees of their employers’ supplies which were being
sold at very cheap prices to low volume cleaners in the city.
Note: Most of my employees lived in
the city, and I had a bus to pick them up and take them home.
One good thing about it was that I had very little absenteeism
since I supplied transportation to and from work.
I used a form like the one on the
following page for requisition, inventory and issue of
supplies.
The plant manager had the key to the
supply building. He surveyed the supply situation in all the
departments each morning and replenished them as needed. If a
department needed a supply item later, the manager would issue
it.
As the supplies were removed from the
inventory, a notation on the form was made. As supplies were
received from the distributors a notation was made on the form
as an addition to the inventory.
Every two weeks the supplies were
inventoried by my office person.
When the form was used as a requisition
to my distributor, only the Amount
Ordered and Description were
completed.
When the form was used to issue supplies,
the Amount Ordered was ignored.
My supply room was shelved, and all
supplies were neatly stacked.
All tools were suspended on wall board
with hooks and with the background painted behind to identify
any missing tool. Tools were never allowed to remain at the
site of the job, they had to be returned to the tool room when
the repair or maintenance job was completed.
The tool room was locked, and the plant
manager had the key.
Capes, plastic bags and packaging items
should be printed with your plant’s name, address and
phone number to spread your name to the public and prevent
theft.
Note: My spotting video, “The
Caplan Method of Stain Removal,” which includes my
comprehensive text and handy spotting board reference available
in English, Spanish and Korean (video only in Korean) from the
Golomb Group, c/o Dennis McCrory, 7664 Plaza Court,
Willowbrook, IL 60521, phone (800) 679-5856. A lecture and
demonstration are presented similar to my classes over the
years at IFI and SDA. This video and text are ideal for
training inexperienced spotters as well as a good review for
experienced spotters. Digesting with enzymes, bleaching,
oxidized oil stains and caramelized sugar stains are discussed
and demonstrated. An article on “Removing Spots in the
Cleaning Machine” and an article on “How to
Increase Production in the Spotting Department” are
included in the comprehensive text book.
Also available from the Golomb Group, in
English and Spanish, is my video on step-by-step shirt
finishing which includes my comprehensive text in loose-leaf
form outlining each procedure for single-operator and
two-operator cabinet shirt unit using a cabinet sleeve press.
Proper forming of the collar using heated collar formers is
demonstrated. Each lay is demonstrated for top quality with
very little effort by the operators. Attractive detailing and
packaging of the hangered shirt, padding, steam pressures and
timing are all discussed. A unique wash formula for whiter
whites and brighter colors and removal of grease and body oils
is included in the loose-leaf text book.
My experience with shirts spans over 55
years with US Army as a principal laundry and dry-cleaning
concessionaire at Ft. Meade, MD, where average shirt volume was
approximately 10,000 per day. We were constantly
“sampled” for excellent quality in both finishing
and washing in laundry and drycleaning and in tailoring. We
operated our own 40,000-sq.-ft. plant for over 35 years.
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