Running a busy industrial laundry means that stock has to be accounted for at every stage, from the wash floor to the customer site and back again. For The Linen Group, technology and accurate data have long played an important role in maintaining that level of control.
As an early adopter of RFID within the commercial laundry sector, the business recognised that greater visibility would require both the right technology and a technology partner capable of supporting an operation that kept on developing. Tarik Saleem, Managing Director of The Linen Group, explains how a decade of working with ABS has supported the way the company operates today and where it is heading next.
Established in 1987, The Linen Group is a second generation, family owned commercial laundry based in Sharston, Manchester, serving hotels and restaurants across Manchester and Cheshire.
The business has consistently invested in technology, equipment and operational improvement, and was one of the earliest industrial laundries in the region to adopt RFID technology across its linen operation. That appetite for innovation is what first brought the company to ABS.
“About ten years ago we were having issues with customers and stock,” says Tarik. “We needed to know where stock was located, whether it had been lost, and whether it had been returned. RFID had been on the market, but it was quite new to flatwork laundries.”
An introduction from Robert Tye, CCO at ABS, led to a small trial in a single restaurant that used napkins. The results were quick to appear, and The Linen Group immediately recognised the wider potential of the technology.
“We started trialling it and saw how powerful it could be,” Tarik explains. “Knowing exactly where your stock is, and how much comes in and goes out, gave us real accuracy.”
On the strength of that first pilot, The Linen Group made the decision to roll RFID out across the entire operation rather than restricting it to selected products. Today, everything from pillowcases and face cloths to the smallest napkins is RFID tracked, an approach the business has now operated successfully for around ten years.
The shift away from paper based tracking removed a long standing source of potential error and gave The Linen Group significantly greater visibility over stock movement. Where counts had once depended on people and handwritten notes, the operation now had accurate data available throughout the linen cycle.
“Before the software everything was on paper, and paper means human error,” says Tarik. “Once we moved to RFID it was almost bulletproof. Everything was one hundred percent, and nothing could be missed.”
The result was a far slicker and more controlled operation, with the management team able to identify discrepancies quickly rather than relying on assumptions or manual counts.
With visibility of stock levels and movement, The Linen Group could identify issues early and resolve them before they developed into customer service problems.
“Once it was installed, we could see exactly where our stock was and what was going missing, so we could solve issues quickly,” Tarik says. “Ultimately the phone stopped ringing, because everything was right.”
Today the business runs on a focused set of reports drawn from the ABSSolute platform. A particular favourite is the full stock age analysis, which shows what is held at each customer site and how individual items are ageing. Because older items carry a greater risk of loss, that information feeds directly into operational decisions and enables clear, evidence based conversations with customers.
The Linen Group now uses a hosted version of ABSSolute rather than maintaining costly servers of its own. Supported by a dedicated internet connection with a backup line, the setup has proved dependable in daily use.
“It is pretty robust,” says Tarik. “On the rare occasion something has gone down, it has been back up within five or ten minutes.”
Implementation was equally smooth, with an ABS team on site for the first week before The Linen Group moved to running the system confidently within its own operation.
For Tarik, the support that sits behind the platform matters as much as the product. “The support is good. I can ring our account manager anytime, and the help desk is great,” he says. “If there is ever a small issue, they just fix it quickly.”
He also places considerable value on the industry knowledge within the ABS team. “The ABS team come from a laundry background before software,” Tarik explains. “They have great knowledge and they speak the same language.”
For a business that places a strong emphasis on precision and operational control, accuracy has become a genuine advantage in the market. “The advantage is that we are accurate in what we do,” Tarik says. “If something is not right, we know it is not right, and we can act on it very quickly. A lot of laundries cannot do that.”
“From what I hear, ABS is probably the number one, and it is pretty solid,” he adds. “It may be one of the more expensive options in the market, but you end up paying for what you get.”
The partnership is set to continue, with attention now turning to what more the software can do as The Linen Group develops its operation further. Tarik is especially enthusiastic about ABSSolute Infinity and its ability to rebalance vehicle loads in a few clicks.
“There is a feature where you can load the vans, and if one is too full you just drag a couple of cages onto another van, and it changes the routes for both drivers,” he says. “That will make things more economical and more streamlined.”
After ten years of working together, his view of the relationship is simple. “Everything is great and I see it continuing,” Tarik says. “For me now it is more about exploring new things on the software.”
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