From wish list to shopping list
Over the past few years, I have begun a bit of a tradition by writing a “holiday wish list” for my December column.
I secretly wish that something that I dream about and mention in my column will
inspire someone to run with it and the product eventually becomes mainstream. I
saw a few of these wishes come true at Clean
’07 in Las Vegas.
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Surely, that is hardly a revelation to most people reading this, but I felt like
the packaging could have a way of preserving the press job a bit more.
Cleaner’s Supply has done a little towards granting my wish, although not completely.
They have introduced a significantly heavier shirt board and collar strip. As a
plant owner, I would not hesitate to tell my customers about this.
We still need something to keep the sleeves from getting so wrinkled. Can’t we have a shirt board that fits into the sleeve? The sleeves really need some
sort of protection from becoming a wrinkled mess.
Forenta presented a new shape and size collar cone. It seems that this will hold
every size shirt from very small to very large.
You can buy this collar cone as a single or a triple. This is a light
bulb-heated aluminum collar come, not unlike their older model, but this one
has a far broader base to accommodate those really large shirts.
Cleaner’s Supply introduced a few other products that can help those doing shirts. You
know those shirts that have those incredibly annoying thick shirt buttons?
Well, now you can break them more often because Cleaners Supply has completed
their line of thick replacement buttons.
Previously introduced in only white buttons, now you can break the colored ones,
too, and be able to buy them from Cleaner
’s Supply.
Also, they are now offering a replacement canvas liner for your laundry carts
that has a divider built into to them. This is useful for shirts as well as
drycleaning.
For you lot control fanatics like me, what better way to put two Tailwind lots
in one basket? Or to separate starch and no starch shirts in the same basket?
There is always a need to have a pyrometer in the plant to check steam traps as
well as steam chest temperature. The laser trap testers don
’t work on the mirror-like surface of most steam heads. I hope that Santa is
reading this, because I want one of these! Cleaner
’s Supply has added this to their list of products.
During the last year or so, these nearly 50-year-old eyeballs have started to
show their age. I had to get reading glasses earlier this year. But it is with
a bit of trepidation, nonetheless, that I recommend a seam ripper with a
built-in magnifying glass. This is useful for cutting off the remaining bits of
thread just before replacing a button. The glass will allow you to see more
clearly and save the shirt from also being cut.
Surely I don’t need this, but I think that I’ll buy a few for my grandmother.
Wesvic demonstrated, for the first time, a piece-counter system. This is a
computerized production monitoring system. So often, the root problem of high
labor cost is below-par production. The best equipment and the best systems
will not make up for pathetic production.
The PieceCounter motivates drycleaning and laun-dry pressers by clearly and continually communicating what is expected of them and
how they are performing. When pressers begin work, they select a job from a
predefined list that you create (i.e. pants, silks, shirts, etc.).
Each job has its own Piece Per Hour (PPH) goal that is displayed on the feedback screen while the presser is pressing. The
feedback screen is continually updated with the presser
’s current PPH, the difference between their PPH and the goal, and an efficiency
rating showing how they are
performing compared to the goal. The presser is always aware of exactly how he or she is performing.
Although this system may seem a bit pricey at first, nothing is more expensive
than labor. If you are accepting 38 shirts per hour while wishing for 55, you
are already spending the money at the rate of something like $700 per month per
employee! Nothing in this business is more expensive than an underachieving
presser. Nothing.
I am especially excited about the introduction of new software enhancements by
SPOT, DCCS and CompassMax. SPOT and DCCS have both introduced new versions of
their popular POS systems that now include the Tailwind System as one of their
tagging/assembly system options.
This is extraordinarily exciting for me as the creator of the Tailwind System,
but that aside, this is a great reason to upgrade your POS as a user of the
Tailwind System. Lack of seamless integration with the major POS systems has
been cited
— although perhaps not fairly — as the one singular drawback of the Tailwind System.
Both SPOT and DCCS feature automatic and intuitive tag information entry at
mark-in as well as automatic batch entry for lots that are tagged without a
terminal nearby. Both the SPOT and DCCS versions are available by the time you
read this. CompassMax will have their version, complete with their attractive
new user interface, ready during the third quarter of this year.
B&G Lieberman introduced a heat-seal barcode press that is specifically designed
for those small fingernail-sized barcode labels
Las Vegas probably denotes “jackpot” in the minds of some, but the realists know that “jackpot” has little to do with Las Vegas, unless you went to the Clean Show in June.
That
’s how you hit the jackpot in Vegas.
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.”
