Industrial laundries are in the business of textile rental, not just washing. Managing that investment demands a new generation of software. ABSSolute Infinity is that platform and Chief Product Officer Rob Helsen explains why the moment to embrace it is now.
Rob leads product strategy and innovation at ABS, overseeing the development of ABSSolute Infinity and the company’s long term platform vision.
Ask any laundry operator what their core product is, and most will say clean textiles. But look more closely at the economics, and a different picture emerges. The true business model of an industrial laundry is textile rental and the washing process is simply how the value of that rental is maintained.
Consider a large hospital served by a professional laundry operation. Millions of euros in linen and workwear are circulating through that relationship at any given moment. That textile is not owned by the hospital. It belongs to the laundry organisation, which earns its return by keeping it clean, available, and in circulation.
If you invest five million in textiles, you want to earn back six million plus everything you spend on the washing process. The goal is maximum return with minimum stock.
Consider a large hospital served by a professional laundry operation. Millions of euros in linen and workwear are circulating through that relationship at any given moment. That textile is not owned by the hospital. It belongs to the laundry organisation, which earns its return by keeping it clean, available, and in circulation.
That visibility, knowing exactly where your textile is and whether it will be back in time, is precisely what ABSSolute Infinity is built to deliver.
ABSSolute V9 has served the laundry industry for over two decades, and its depth of functionality is genuinely respected by the customers who use it. But technology moves forward, and the architecture that made V9 powerful in the early 2000s has become a constraint in the 2020s.
V9 was designed as a rich client application, installed locally, running on internal servers, purpose built for use inside the physical walls of a laundry facility. That made sense when it was conceived. Today, it creates unnecessary complexity: customers carry the burden of their own hardware investments, IT maintenance, security patching, and update cycles.
Our customers are laundries, that is their core business. IT is not. They want to be unburdened from it. And that is exactly the role ABS can and should play.
Beyond the operational overhead, the older architecture had reached its limits as a platform for innovation. Building new features on top of two decades of layered development had made screens dense, dialogues complex, and onboarding intensive. Operators needed significant training just to use the system confidently.
The decision to build ABSSolute Infinity was not made lightly. It represents a considered commitment to the next generation of the platform, built on modern foundations without discarding the knowledge accumulated over 23 years of serving the laundry sector.
ABSSolute Infinity is a browser based, cloud native platform, accessible from any device, anywhere, without the need for local installation or internal infrastructure. For laundry operators, this represents a fundamental shift in how they experience and operate their management software.
But the technology choice is only part of the story. The deeper change is in how the platform thinks about its users.
Where V9 required you to know how to navigate the system, Infinity guides you through it. The next step is already known, so guidance is provided automatically.
Infinity is designed around the physical flow of work on the production floor. A sorter, a packer, a loader, each has a specific role in the logistics chain, and the software presents exactly what that person needs at that moment. Nothing more, nothing less. The goal is that Infinity feels as intuitive as a modern smartphone.
This simplicity does not come at the cost of capability. Infinity is designed to meet and exceed the functional depth of V9, while opening new possibilities that the older architecture could not support, including new revenue streams such as container repair billing, and additional invoicing models that did not exist before.
One of the defining principles behind the development of Infinity is strategic discipline. Rather than replicating the entire V9 feature set from day one, the focus is placed on where the greatest operational value lies.
Analysis of the customer base showed that most laundry operations run on linen, garments, or a combination of both. Residential laundry adds a third significant segment. Together, these areas form the heart of the market and became the foundation of the rollout.
Software is never finished. The right approach is not to wait until everything is perfect. It is to start where the value is highest and continue building from there.
Linen management launched first. Garment processing followed in 2025 and continues to develop. Residential laundry is now in progress. Cleanroom and specialised segments are on the roadmap beyond 2027. The pattern is consistent: high impact areas first, with a clear path forward.
This phased approach also informs how customers can transition. Operations do not need to wait for a complete business line before moving to Infinity. Individual workstations and workflows can be migrated at a pace that suits the business. For customers with recent internal hardware investments, Infinity can also run on existing infrastructure during a transition period, removing the barrier of a forced choice between old and new.
The current version of ABSSolute Infinity is a transitional phase, significant but not the endpoint. The long term vision moves further.
As the platform matures, the focus shifts from human interfaces toward machine to machine intelligence. The data flowing through Infinity, every scan, every delivery, every production cycle, becomes the foundation for operational insight. By integrating with MES systems, logistics platforms, and external data sources such as hotel booking patterns or weather data, laundries gain the ability to anticipate demand rather than only respond.
The more data you can connect, the better decisions you can make. Data gives insight. Insight gives leverage. Leverage reduces investment while increasing return.
Think of a laundry serving hotel clients in a tourist region. With access to booking platform data, that laundry can forecast occupancy peaks, a Formula 1 race weekend, a major conference, a seasonal surge, and position its textile capacity accordingly. The result is not only operational efficiency but also stronger pricing power and improved margin capture.
This is the direction ABSSolute Infinity is moving toward: a platform that does not only record what has happened, but actively helps shape what happens next.
Sustainability in industrial laundry is often discussed in terms of water, chemicals, and energy. These remain important. Operational efficiency is equally powerful, including reduced transport, improved textile rotation, and lower waste across the chain.
When Infinity reduces deadstock, improves throughput, or extends textile lifespan, the environmental impact improves alongside financial performance. Less energy per kilogram processed. Less premature textile replacement.
The more data you can connect, the better decisions you can make. Data gives insight. Insight gives leverage. Leverage reduces investment while increasing return.
The platform positions sustainability as an outcome of better operations rather than a separate initiative. For operators preparing for stricter reporting and lifecycle regulation, this creates a practical and measurable foundation.
ABSSolute Infinity is available today and continuously expanding. The business case is clear: reduced IT burden, improved usability, greater flexibility, and a platform designed to evolve with operations.
For operators on legacy systems, the question is not whether to move but how to time the transition. A flexible migration path allows progress at a pace aligned with business priorities.
The laundry industry manages complex logistics and high value textile cycles. It benefits from software built for that reality, intuitive in use, strong in capability, and forward looking in intelligence.
That software is ABSSolute Infinity.
See how ABS Laundry Business Solutions transforms industrial laundry operations in real time with ABSSolute Infinity.
And that's just the beginning!
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