National Clothesline

Away back in a high school yearbook, some classmate wrote: “Learn, my son, before you are old, for a good education is more precious than gold; for gold and silver fade away, but a good education will never decay. ”

I’d like to say, “How true,” but I would be lying. I constantly see how some hard-won lessons and practices fade away and we somehow allow bad habit to creep into our operations and become embedded in our daily way of doing business.

When I see some wasteful systems going on in my travels to various plants, I ask, “Is there any reason why you do it that way?”

The answer I usually hear is “We’ve always done it that way!”

If we don’t identify our mistakes and correct them, we are destined to continue those mistakes. Most often it takes less than the same simple amount of energy to do something correctly and economically with both short- and long-term benefits.

I remember visiting a plant with four pressers and finishing stations. Each presser, when completing a garment, walked three and a half steps to secure a hanger, then returned three and half steps to hang up the garment, then another two stops to secure the next piece.

The pressers were being compensated on hourly wage and appeared to a busy and cooperative crew. Now you don ’t have to be an efficiency expert to know there must be a better way.

I looked at the production cost and the profit motive and when I finished with some simple corrections of bringing work to the worker and an orderly work flow to the inspections and assembly area, I found an astronomical savings by just multiplying the combined salaries for the four pressers and their increased production.

With some simple calculations, I was able to suggest to the owner and his wife that a Hawaiian vacation for two could be paid for with just the savings alone.

This particular case would seem unusual, but in reality it goes on just about everywhere — “because we always did it that way.” It may not always be in the finishing department, although that’s the sore spot, probably.

Our finishers are creative people and prefer to do things their way. Changes can be made, but they go back to their old ways or threaten to leave. Are there prima donnas working in your plant?

We don’t have to go too far back in history to know the advantages in automation and that we are on the threshold of robotics.

Of course, I don’t expect to see robot pressers in my lifetime, but the principles of repetition and classifying or selectively segregating the work load to your best quality and productive advantage is a must as a standard procedure.

Drycleaners are aware that pants and trousers constitute some 50 percent of their volume. Yet they don ’t invest in a legger/utility press which, of course, does a trouser leg in one lay with no chance of making a double crease.

Fifty pants an hour with a topper/blower is a common practice, even for a trainee, and there are excellent topper/
blowers on the market where an operator operates two units. The operator simply pivots from one unit to the other, thus eliminating ceiling gazing and non-productive day-dreaming.

All it takes is observing your present operators to see if they reach 30 inches when they could be reaching 15 inches, if they are walking to the work when the work station could be beside him.

Do you have your spotter hang your pants on a banana type hook in easy reach? They hold 50 pants and most of the wrinkled fall out prior to pressing.

So it goes. The purpose of the shirt unit is to dry the goods as well as press, so the extractor speed and time allowance is most important. Too wet or too dry can kill any production or quality advantage and the best operator will lose all benefits of the best training and equipment.

And at the counter

After steamlining the finishing department, check your counter operations.

Does the customer’s name come up on the computer along with the phone number?

Can your counter sales person greet your customers by name, know their starch preference or that they like delivery in the evening or Saturday morning?

Does you mark-in counter have all that is needed at fingertips?

Is your phone technique spelled out for action and courtesy?

Remember, a phone call is not an interruption; it’s your best chance for a one-on-one image builder.

Can your mark-in person be trained in classification for drycleaning or for pre-spotting?

An efficient and well organized work space saves time. And time is money.