Category / Trends

by Romy Apolega

Tagaytay is the new growth area for laundry. Before you invest, consider these 4 challenges first.

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Real estate development in Tagaytay City. Wikipedia image courtesy of Manilaspirit

Like many cities, Tagaytay is experiencing a boom in tourism and business activities, which is good news for the laundry industry.

With huge demand for hotel rooms, restaurant services, wedding caterers and other hospitality services, these businesses are relying on a growing number of laundry shops to wash and provide their daily linen and uniform requirements.

On top of these, the hundreds of units of condominiums and houses that mushroomed over the last decade means a large client base for retail laundry services.

But putting up a new laundry in Tagaytay can also be a challenging endeavor – especially if you have not considered some location-specific challenges.

Here are 4 of them:

Supply and Quality of Water

It is known within the industry of Tagaytay’s – and the greater Cavite’s – water supply challenges. Read an article here by the Business Mirror.

Some in Tagaytay also rely on hard water (deep well), which I mentioned in past articles are not the preferred kind of water for laundry as it requires more amount of chemicals to wash off dirt.

Cost of Electricity

Cost of electricity and LPG are the most expensive portion of laundry. In a place like Tagaytay where relative humidity is higher than Manila, clothes dry longer due to higher amount of water vapor in the air relative to water vapor in saturation. This means laundry shops in Tagaytay (and Baguio as well) need extra heat to dry clothes and therefore use up more power.

Technical Education

Laundry is an industry that heavily relies on innovation and technology. It requires constant education on new techniques and skills enhancement for owners and employees. Owners and employees have to maximize the very few laundry-specific seminars and training available in the area in Tagaytay – or travel to Manila to attend some.

Suppliers

The low number of suppliers of chemicals for laundry, kitchen sanitation and other cleaning services has kept prices a bit up north.

 

Despite these challenges, Tagaytay is still the new hotbed of opportunities for the laundry industry. Laundry operators, owners and employees need to find solutions, be smart and get the right partners.

If you’re thinking of building your own laundry shop in Tagaytay, ask and plan your next venture by reaching Romy Apolega at rhapolega@yahoo.com.

READ NEXT: 3 Common Headaches in Commercial Laundry

 

Featured image by Steven Rascoe

by Romy Apolega

3 common headaches in commercial laundry (and how to solve them)

Behind every great hotel, hospital, catering and manufacturing company is a commercial laundry. Commercial laundry is a huge business, washing tons of linen every day to replenish fresh hotel towels, table cloth, company uniforms and the likes for businesses to continue servicing employees and clients.

But with big operations come challenges. As a consultant for various institutional clients and commercial laundries, I get to hear a lot of problems common across clients. Here I list down three common headaches of commercial laundry and some suggestions on how to solve them.

 

1. Bad quality wash and finish (especially with today’s water shortage and power outages)

Main causes:

Bad systems; ineffective procedures, practices and machine; and lack of contingency plans to continue operations when faced with challenges with utilities (e.g. lack of water)

Solution:

Revise the wash formula and tailor suit to your laundry’s limitations

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2. High cost of producing quality wash and finish

Main causes:

Laundry management does not understand utility costing.

Solution:

Learn the real cost of utilities by asking experts — and know who the real technical experts are. I once talked with a laundry shop owner who said they were discouraged to do dry cleaning services by a supplier since these are generally unprofitable. This is simply not true! Dry cleaning can be profitable if the supplier were only informed about proper utility costing.

 

3. Rewash of more than 3%

Main causes:

Poor sorting, poor wash formula, poor water, machine overload, poor rinsing, over dry and many more.

Solution:

Training, TQM and ask yourself, “Is it really clean”?

READ NEXT: 7 signs to tell whether your laundry business is failing

Of course, these are very general solutions that assume other things constant. If you ever encounter these, I still recommend to look deeper into the problem to find out what is really wrong. Each company will need specific and customized solutions to resolve the root cause of their issues.

If you encounter these challenges or any problems with your commercial laundry, ask help from Romy Apolega by sending him an email via rhapolega@yahoo.com or editor@isitcleanph.com

 

Featured images courtesy of Hermes Rivera & Jetshoots.com on Unsplash

by Romy Apolega

7 trends shaping commercial laundry in the Philippines in 2019

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Big laundry operation. Image from Gulfnews.com

The commercial laundry industry in the Philippines over the last few years has grown immensely. Self-service laundry shops have mushroomed within our neighborhood, while big laundry companies have benefited from hotels and restaurants increasingly outsourcing their laundry operations. The laundry care business alone (fabric softener, bleach and detergents) grew by 9% to a PhP52 billion industry in 2017, according to Euromonitor International.

Here are the trends that will drive the sector this year:

 

1. New equipment that do more with less

With barely 4 in every 10 households owning a washing machine (according to Euromonitor for 2017), it’s no wonder why commercial laundry is popular. Urban dwellers not only wish to avoid paying so much for a washing machine, but they’re also looking for the convenience offered by commercial laundry — quick and quality wash.

New equipment for commercial laundry today provide sophisticated moisture content capacity and energy, labor and production efficiency. This is particularly important for big laundry companies where cost savings are critical. New equipment are also faster in washing and require less water and heat. Make sure to check these features the next time you invest in an equipment.

 

2. Water will be more valuable

Cost of good water — an essential ingredient to good laundry — has risen. Whereas laundry shops will find cheap water from deep well, hard water and water with iron, these actually harm linen more than they make them fresh anew.

With rising costs of utilities and fuel, companies are looking for practical ways and technologies that will result to cost savings, especially on water. These range from sophisticated innovations such as recycling of water to simple and practical methods such as rainwater harvesting.

 

3. Environmental compliance will be a growing issue

With the rehabilitation of Boracay and Manila Bay, laundry businesses will be looking more at environmental compliance. A pressing question among commercial laundry players today is investing on waste water treatment, which doesn’t come cheap.

Big laundry companies will also be concerned about Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). BOD and COD should pass government regulations, otherwise there are heavy penalties for violators. The DENR also now prohibits phosphate content in waste water, thus affecting the type of chemicals laundry shops will purchase.

 

4. Less dependence on chemicals

Like how laundry technology is trying to make use of less water, it is also moving towards efficient utilization of chemicals (preferably, zero phosphate as well). This makes the resulting waste water more environment-friendly and easier to recycle.

 

5. Outsourcing laundry — and linen — will continue

Laundry in the hotel industry is a sizable operation, employing dozens of staff and incurring maintenance cost for various equipment. Recently, a number of hotels have closed their in-house laundry operations and resorted to outsourcing of even linen (to save storage cost and maximize their real estate). This will definitely continue as hospitality companies focus on their core strength (service) while outsourcing non-essential processes such as laundry operations to specialist companies.

READ NEXT: Hotel laundry: outsource or in-house?

6. Higher standards of quality

As the number of commercial laundry players increase, customers — whether retail or institutional — will look for service providers that can deliver the best quality wash and prolong linen life. Not many companies use quality management tools such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Total Plant Maintenance (TPM) and whiteness test in the commercial laundry business to ensure best-in-class services are provided. These tools will become more important to satisfy the requirements of institutions and the public.

 

7. Data analytics in laundry

Not many companies and laundry shops today collect metrics on the performance of their business and laundry operations. As competition grows, data analytics will certainly help them survive. What is the production vis-a-vis capacity? What is the peso per kilo wash load? What are the monitoring systems in place?

I have always thought laundry is an efficiency game. After collating information, we can use the Ishikawa principle or fish-bone analysis to answer important questions.

For questions, email me at rhapolega@yahoo.com or editor@isitcleanph.com

by Romy Apolega

Checklist: 8 factors to consider to win in the business

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Image courtesy of Abstract-living.com

Competition is winning the business game — attaining the needed sales, leading the market, comfortable edge in the sales figure, and of course, getting to be popular in the line of business.

But winning is easier said than done. Times have changed along with technology, revealing new ideas, ways of communication, and equipment. This is especially true in the hotel, restaurant, and institutional industry, even among suppliers and players in related sectors of laundry, food safety, and sanitation. There are new tools to use to pursue objectives, new services coming up, and new approaches for these industries to win old and new customers and even to maintain them.

On this regard, are we prepared in the following considerations to fulfill our objectives?

Vision/Mission – Have you been visiting your vision and mission regularly to gauge whether they are still synced with the times and objectives? Are the customers’ wants and needs still the same? Have you realized what new segments can provide better figures?

Total quality management – Is this in practice and in conjunction with total plant management?

Marketing and sales – Are these two groups well coordinated for the common goals and sales target needed? Are the new customer types, services, and products considered very well?

Operation – Will it be able to deliver the sales and marketing group efforts?  Are the commitments, terms, standards, and quality tailored fit for the customers fulfilled?

Services – After the necessary products are delivered, will the corresponding, expected after-sales service be provided on time?

Suppliers/Supplies – Have the quality standards been established to the point of reliability in all aspects?

Contracts – Different contracts are drawn with customers and suppliers, too. How about the advantages or long- and short-term  contracts? Will such contracts bring down costs, increase productivity and quality?

Pricing – After all has been said and done about quality, availability, standards, operation, and terms, pricing is established. This is the final measure in the competition game — will it result to bigger sales but lower profit or lower sales yet bigger profit? Take your pick.

What do these all mean for the hotel and restaurant industry, specifically the laundry, food safety, and housekeeping sectors?

Customers are happy with clean crisp linen and being served with quality safe food in sparkling and spotless dining wares. These are easy to be promised but they also require a lot of backroom effort to produce the quality and standards needed. All the eight issues above will have to be dealt with carefully to succeed with the competition game.

Are you performing well in all these factors? Let’s talk: rhapolega@yahoo.com or send me a tweet @isitcleanph