UNIFORM SERVICING AND RFID

With RFID technology, elaborate and expensive sorting and counting by hand is no longer necessary.

The requirements of workwear changes from organisation to organisation. Protective firefighter uniforms need to remain fit-for-purpose, shared hotel employee uniforms need to be laundered quickly and contractor uniforms have to be logged against specific workers to assign accountability. Whatever the main driver for tracking uniforms, many businesses benefit from a management system that ensures workers have the uniforms they need. For more examples of how this system can apply to different industries, see our uniform management examples.

However, it’s important that these systems are robust. Manually tracking uniforms using barcodes or simply counting garments is time consuming and leaves room for human error. It’s easy to forget to update inventory spreadsheets and complete check-in forms. Not to mention keeping on top of these processes ties up staff time which could be used elsewhere in the business. Compared to more efficient and automatic tracking solutions, it is far easier for garments to go missing in a manual system, which leads to unnecessary replacement costs. The waterproof fabric RFID tags are securely sewn into a pocket in the garment.

The uniform RFID tag can withstand temperatures of up to 180 degrees, which means they survive in most fire-fighting conditions as well as during professional cleaning procedures.

Any commercial laundry that has ever serviced a uniform supplier knows the difficulties involved in laundering and tracking each and every item in a large uniform order. For this reason, RFID is being used for uniform servicing as well, enabling accurate, item-level inventory control while keeping manual labor costs contained.

The ability to provide reliable inventory status updates delivers considerable benefit to uniform suppliers, helping to reduce shrink and optimize lifecycle management of garments. And considering the size of many uniform orders, the enhanced visibility enabled by RFID also helps commercial laundries to improve storage efficiency and billing accuracy for greater profitability

RFID tags, which can be sewn onto linens, allow items to be easily counted and monitored as they are received and returned by the laundry. In addition, a personnel can use handheld scanners to find linens in waste bags or stored in cupboards, enabling them to detect inappropriate disposal and identify where losses are occurring.

Our unique RFID textile identification Platform enables companies to:

Track each asset for its entire life cycle

Labour can be further reduced by permanently installing passive RFID readers in key locations to track linen movement or monitor problem areas. These fixed readers capture data in real-time without human intervention which leads to enhanced operational insight from the collected data. Using RFID to proactively monitor a high-risk area is a proven way of increasing patient and staff safety.

The RFID tags used for tracking must withstand the rigors of sanitizing linens and uniforms to prevent infections. This simplifies that only the most durable RFID tags can be used. The use of RFID technology to track items through the commercial laundry process vastly improves inventory management, reducing loss and enabling real-time asset visibility.

Moreover, linen retirement tracking is improved as well with RFID. Some of the sturdier RFID tracking solutions will last for up to 200 laundry cycles,  withstanding harsh conditions in commercial washing and drying. This allows more effective rag-out detection and linen replacement management, ensuring that linens are retired when they can no longer be used.

Improves Textile workflow with RFID Tracking

Save time and labor through automation

Each linen is embedded with a flexible sewn-in RFID tag, assigning each item a unique digital identification. RFID readers are placed at key transition points within the operations to track the movement and manage linens through the laundry cycle and throughout the life of the asset.

Gain real-time visibility and eliminate loss

SmartX HUB solution provides companies with real-time data on linen location and status. This item visibility helps track where in the laundry cycle different linens are, the last location, who had previous custody, and the usage and laundry history.

Benefits

How can we help you?

Contact us at the SmartX office nearest to you or submit a business inquiry online.

Let us know how we can help you solve your business challenges!

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