On Premise Laundries
My blogs are created specifically keeping in mind the challenges faced in Indian Laundry Industry and opportunities available........
Today I am sharing some specific pointers with regard to " What should be the driving factors while planning and designing on premise laundries , specially for Hotels"
Generally while building a new property or re doing existing laundries , consultants and owners are primarily driven by CAPEX- Capital expenditure on the Plant and Machinery, however There are 2 Key Cost centers for any laundry- along with CAPEX , planners, system designers , consultants and owners must evaluate any design for OPEX also- Operating Expenditure - over a period of time say for example first 5 Years itself can completely change the perception of many owners about how they should buy their laundry plant and machinery
Simply put- A TCO analysis -( Total Cost of Ownership) , if done , say for a period of 5 years of OPEX, will automatically show which system is cheaper to buy and which system is cost effective to own for long years
One basic method of arriving at part operating cost for one particular set of machines or any particular machine is given at end of this article and before this is applied, understanding some basic most operating features for individual laundry machines is critically important
Washer Extractors- Most of the Indian laundries are not above 3-4 tons daily processing capacity and Washer Extractors are best suited for this size of laundries......
Today a host of modern features are available on all reputed brands of Washer Extractors and a KEY CONSIDERATION here must be G FORCE- and along with G FORCE another KEY CONSIDERATION should be flexibility in machine controls to enable user/operator to use this G Force feature as per operations need. Higher the G Force, it is better of saving HUGE MONEY in Dryers and Ironing and along with this the machine controls should allow selection of Wash and Extract G either in RPM or as G in any variation......By any means mechanical extraction is cheapest to remove water as compared to using steam or gas or Electricity to evaporate this remaining moisture in Dryers........
Dryers- This is one of the most neglected areas in many laundries- Most of the times Dryers are undersized and under capacity leading to bottle neck in productions.
Drying is a simple phenomenon where surface area and rate of heat transfer plays direct role.......Larger the surface area available for garments with in the drum- faster they dry, Higher the heat transfer ratio - faster they dry........It is important to understand that catalog data, technical data in terms of consumption carry no significance unless applied and evaluated for machine's productivity because at end of day we are looking at not how much steam is consumed by which dryer but how much linen is dry at how much steam is consumed......our focus should be maximizing energy efficiency that is to dry maximum load in minimum steam
Dryers must be as large as possible , Bigger the inner drum and higher the CFM along with ability of steam coil to work at higher steam pressure- will result in lowest dryer operating cost.
Hot Air recirculation or heat recycle must be included in specifications as this can lower steam consumption by almost 25-30% which means HUGE SAVINGS
Ironing System - A flat work Ironer can be compared quite literally to heart in human body.......this is the machine which can make or break your laundry............
The most expensive piece of equipment in any laundry- this is heart of operations........BULK of hotel laundry is sheets- either these are processed efficiently - shortest possible time or if there is a blockage in Ironing system, will lead to accumulation of loads, non delivery of pressed sheets to housekeeping and will also mean ......slowing down the preceding operations like washing and pre drying
Considering 100% cotton sheets and even 70:30 ratio of poly cotton , taking in to account double layer items like Duvet covers , which are three layers at seams , High GSM table covers, it is absolutely a CHEST IRONER required in any hotel laundry unless the laundry size is too small..........
Folders are a critical help in any laundry and considering cheaper man power, many hotel laundries skip on folders considering manual folding will work out to be cheaper but it is not so........
There is limit to speed with which manual folding can be done........leading to speed regulation at feeding rate also at Ironer start....which means.......a lot of input energy is lost while Ironer keep on running without sheets
In next article I will continue it with other machines.......next to role of steam in a laundry, followed by machine sizing guidelines and more
Wasmaatic is a prominent and dependable supplier of Energy efficient Laundry equipment......to know more about our company, please visit www.wasmaatic.com
My blogs are created specifically keeping in mind the challenges faced in Indian Laundry Industry and opportunities available........
Today I am sharing some specific pointers with regard to " What should be the driving factors while planning and designing on premise laundries , specially for Hotels"
Generally while building a new property or re doing existing laundries , consultants and owners are primarily driven by CAPEX- Capital expenditure on the Plant and Machinery, however There are 2 Key Cost centers for any laundry- along with CAPEX , planners, system designers , consultants and owners must evaluate any design for OPEX also- Operating Expenditure - over a period of time say for example first 5 Years itself can completely change the perception of many owners about how they should buy their laundry plant and machinery
Simply put- A TCO analysis -( Total Cost of Ownership) , if done , say for a period of 5 years of OPEX, will automatically show which system is cheaper to buy and which system is cost effective to own for long years
One basic method of arriving at part operating cost for one particular set of machines or any particular machine is given at end of this article and before this is applied, understanding some basic most operating features for individual laundry machines is critically important
Washer Extractors- Most of the Indian laundries are not above 3-4 tons daily processing capacity and Washer Extractors are best suited for this size of laundries......
Today a host of modern features are available on all reputed brands of Washer Extractors and a KEY CONSIDERATION here must be G FORCE- and along with G FORCE another KEY CONSIDERATION should be flexibility in machine controls to enable user/operator to use this G Force feature as per operations need. Higher the G Force, it is better of saving HUGE MONEY in Dryers and Ironing and along with this the machine controls should allow selection of Wash and Extract G either in RPM or as G in any variation......By any means mechanical extraction is cheapest to remove water as compared to using steam or gas or Electricity to evaporate this remaining moisture in Dryers........
Dryers- This is one of the most neglected areas in many laundries- Most of the times Dryers are undersized and under capacity leading to bottle neck in productions.
Drying is a simple phenomenon where surface area and rate of heat transfer plays direct role.......Larger the surface area available for garments with in the drum- faster they dry, Higher the heat transfer ratio - faster they dry........It is important to understand that catalog data, technical data in terms of consumption carry no significance unless applied and evaluated for machine's productivity because at end of day we are looking at not how much steam is consumed by which dryer but how much linen is dry at how much steam is consumed......our focus should be maximizing energy efficiency that is to dry maximum load in minimum steam
Dryers must be as large as possible , Bigger the inner drum and higher the CFM along with ability of steam coil to work at higher steam pressure- will result in lowest dryer operating cost.
Hot Air recirculation or heat recycle must be included in specifications as this can lower steam consumption by almost 25-30% which means HUGE SAVINGS
Ironing System - A flat work Ironer can be compared quite literally to heart in human body.......this is the machine which can make or break your laundry............
The most expensive piece of equipment in any laundry- this is heart of operations........BULK of hotel laundry is sheets- either these are processed efficiently - shortest possible time or if there is a blockage in Ironing system, will lead to accumulation of loads, non delivery of pressed sheets to housekeeping and will also mean ......slowing down the preceding operations like washing and pre drying
Considering 100% cotton sheets and even 70:30 ratio of poly cotton , taking in to account double layer items like Duvet covers , which are three layers at seams , High GSM table covers, it is absolutely a CHEST IRONER required in any hotel laundry unless the laundry size is too small..........
Folders are a critical help in any laundry and considering cheaper man power, many hotel laundries skip on folders considering manual folding will work out to be cheaper but it is not so........
There is limit to speed with which manual folding can be done........leading to speed regulation at feeding rate also at Ironer start....which means.......a lot of input energy is lost while Ironer keep on running without sheets
In next article I will continue it with other machines.......next to role of steam in a laundry, followed by machine sizing guidelines and more
Wasmaatic is a prominent and dependable supplier of Energy efficient Laundry equipment......to know more about our company, please visit www.wasmaatic.com
