3 Industries That Are Tracking Their Laundry With RFID

Suzanne Smiley | Apr 08, 2015 | min read

Introduction

Due to the longevity and durability of RFID laundry tags, the tagging option has become increasingly popular in industries requiring consistent wash and wear of garments. Today, there are a number of industries that use RFID technology to track laundry items. Below are three prominent industries who track laundry via RFID:

1. Casinos

Large casinos employ thousands of people which requires keeping thousands of uniforms in stock. When employees check in for the day, they expect their uniforms to be clean and ready for use. Without a system in place to manage the vast amount of uniforms, they will be lost or stolen which burdens the casino with unnecessary costs.

Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort was previously allowing each department to handle the maintenance and care of their uniforms. Considering their large inventory of over 20,000 uniforms, this system was not providing any type of accountability, and the casino was watching replacement expenses steadily rise. When they installed an RFID-based laundry tracking system, they saw positive changes in three key performance indicators:

Cut annual purchases by 5%+.
Reduced laundry expenses by 3%-5%.
Delivered up to 20% greater labor productivity.

Learn more about how RFID is having an impact on this casino.

2. Hotels

It may come as no surprise, but because of the tremendous volume of linens laundered daily, hotels are one of the most common industries using RFID tracking for their linens and uniforms. RFID can prevent lost and stolen linens and keep accurate historical records for wearing or soiling purposes. Some hotels do the laundering process in-house, but others, such as Mr. C Hotel in Beverly Hills, use an outside vendor to manage all their laundry.

Mr. C Hotel in Beverly Hills, a boutique luxury hotel, opened in early 2011. Each linen in the hotel, which includes linens from the rooms, gym, fitness center, and pool, is produced in Italy and shipped to the hotel. These linens’ combined worth are over $100,000, making them high-value assets to the hotel. Unfortunately, the amount of linens going to the laundry site and coming back were not matching up, so Mr. C Hotel installed an RFID linen tracking solution. After installing the system, the boutique hotel saw changes in two key areas:

Reduced the rate of missing items from 20%-30% down to 3%.
After factoring cost savings, the RFID system paid for itself in under two years.

Learn more about how RFID helped this hotel protect its assets.

3. Hospitals

Hospitals, like hotels, have thousands of linens in-house that must be laundered daily. It is important that all linens undergo a strict laundry process in order to eliminate the spread of disease. However, using a labor intensive manual process does not guarantee all linens are washed or returned. Hospitals are using RFID to ensure each linen is washed and returned to the appropriate bin, diminishing losses. Historical records associated with each RFID laundry tag help hospitals create logs documenting the amount of wash cycles and usage of each linen.

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in England installed an RFID system to prevent loss in their inventory which contains over 12 million pieces of linen per year. The hospital was experiencing hefty losses in their inventory due to staff considering the linen too soiled, or the linen being stolen or lost. Once the hospital installed the system, they saw improvements in two important statistics:

Previously, the hospital spent over $579,228 (US) to replace lost/stolen linens.
The system is expected to save the hospital between $371,300 and $445,560 (US) per year

Learn more about how RFID is changing this hospital.

Conclusion

Quite a few other industries are using RFID laundry tracking systems besides casinos, hotels, and hospitals. Nursing homes, gyms, sports clubs, catering companies, and rental companies are all seeing tremendous success with RFID laundry and uniform tracking.

For any questions about laundry tracking with RFID, comment below, or contact us for more information. If you’d like to learn more about all things RFID, check out our website or our YouTube channel.

To learn more about real-world RFID applications, check out the links below!

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