Traditional laundry plants face the vicious circle of “business growth → equipment addition→ increasing costs → compressed profits”, the root lies in:
● The limitation of linear thinking
Equate “production capacity” with “quantity of equipment” and neglect the leverage effect of unit productivity efficiency and process optimization.
● The imbalance of the cost structure
The investment in equipment belongs to the fixed cost of heavy assets. The fluctuating orders lead to an insufficient rate of capacity utilization. (off seasons and peak seasons), intensifying the pressure on unit costs.
● Market risks
The investment cycle of the equipment is long (1-3 years), and customers’ requirements change quickly. (like environmental protection and customized requirements) As a result, the capacity and demand are mismatched.
Key to Break the Deadlock
❑ Optimize the process
Dynamic sorting system
● Pain point
Traditional manual sorting has low efficiency and easily leads to mixed items and missing items.
● Solution
Introducing the RFID intelligent sorting equipment with AI visual identification can achieve automatic sorting and passage planning. The efficiency has increased by 3 times, and the failure rate has reduced by 90%.
Standardized laundry process
● Pain point
The fabrics and stain types of linen from different customers have a big difference. The traditional mixed washing wastes resources.
● Solution
Make classified washing standards according to the fabrics ( cotton, chemical fibers, and blended fabrics) and stains (light, medium, heavy). Use the parametric control to reduce energy consumption.
❑ Digital Management
The intelligent production scheduling system
● Pain point
Manual production scheduling relies on experience and easily leads to equipment idling or order backlog.
● Solution
Deploy MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to collect equipment status, order progress, and inventory data in real-time, and automatically generate the optimal production scheduling plan through algorithms. This can help balance production capacity and order demand.
Customer Collaboration Platform
● Pain point
If the changed requirements (urgent order additions or cancellations) are unable to synchronize in real-time, the production will be mixed.
● Solution
Build a customer APP/ mini-program to support functions like order status inquiry, emergency order addition, and complaint feedback.
Integrate data with the internal ERP system to achieve full transparency throughout the entire chain from demand to production and delivery.
Core Suggestions
❑ First “Minus” Then “Plus”
● Eliminate inefficient equipment (old models with high energy consumption and high failure rate) to release production capacity space.
● Optimize the personnel structure and transform repetitive positions like sorting and quality checks to high-value positions like technical maintenance, data analysis, and so on.
❑ Reconstruction: Customer-centric
● High-end customers (5-star hotels) pay more attention to quality and response time instead of a low price.
● By digital management, “Single Order Tracking” (Full traceability from receipt to delivery) can be realized, improving customers’ trust.
❑ Long-term investment
● The payback period for digital systems is long (usually 2 to 3 years), so a buffer period for funds is needed.
● Give priority to choosing platforms with strong scalability (those that support API integration and modular upgrades) to avoid repetitive construction in the future.
Conclusion
The essence of a laundry factory breaking free from the “equipment addition predicament” is to shift from “scale expansion” to “efficiency upgrade”, from “heavy assets” to “light assets”, and from “experience-driven” to “data-driven”. This transformation requires courage, but even more so, a methodology, to achieve a dual breakthrough in profit and competitiveness by virtue of process optimization, digital management, and resource integration.
Post time: Jun-09-2025