Linen processing is a typical labor-intensive industry. End-to-end sorting, conveying, washing, ironing, inventory checking, and packing heavily rely on manual operations. With high-temperature working environments, repeated high-intensity work, and professional skill thresholds, most laundry plants have difficulty in recruiting and retaining workers.
At present, hotels continue to raise their linen service standards. Clients require faster delivery. They also focus on linen cleanliness, softness, and comfort. Consumers pay more attention to fabric hygiene and safety. Laundry plants must improve their laundry equipment, working environment, and staff expertise.
Besides, the industry faces a growing challenge. Skilled workers capable of standardized operations are scarce. Newcomers require long-term training as well as adaptation. Employee turnover remains high. Labor, training, and recruitment costs have increased year by year. Most laundry businesses are caught in a dilemma. They need to ensure stable production capacity and high-quality delivery. But they cannot afford high labor costs. Laundry plants struggle to achieve low-labor production and improve production efficiency.
Huachen Laundry in Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province, has been deeply involved in the linen rental business. It has been working with Kingstar for nearly 10 years. Kingstar provides smart laundry equipment, proper plant layout and workflow planning, and end-to-end RFID-based digital management. They have developed a solution for reference. This year, Huachen has completed the smart production line upgrade. Since that upgrade, daily linen laundry volume has remained stable at 25 tons during the off-season. The plant has only more than 20 employees. The workforce has been reduced by half, while overall production efficiency has greatly increased.
The entire smart production line is centered around front and back overhead bag systems. It is divided into three independent functional areas: the sorting and washing area, the ironing and finishing area, and the packing and dispatch area. The closed-loop conveyor system significantly reduces the use of linen carts. Clean and contaminated areas are clearly separated. The positions for transporting linen back and forth are eliminated. This reduces basic labor requirements at the source. Meanwhile, the plant uses smart sorting operating platforms, fully automatic packing conveyor lines, and heat-resistant RFID-based tracking management systems. Automatic and digital processes reduce repetitive manual work. This significantly reduces labor requirements.
Sorting and Washing Area
During the linen receiving process, Huachen establishes standardized linen receiving and dispatch procedures with its partner hotels. Hotels are responsible for turning duvet covers inside out in advance. So, linen requires no secondary sorting when entering the plant. This directly reduces a repetitive manual process. When dirty linen arrives at the plant, it is loaded onto the conveyor lines. Sorting employees only need to identify bed sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases, and towels before loading them into the corresponding chute. The sorted linen automatically enters the front-end overhead bag storage system.
Based on fabric types, the back-end control system automatically assigns washing programs. Linen enters two tunnel washers. They automatically complete washing, drying, and loosening. The entire process requires no manual linen handling. This eliminates the manual operations on traditional production lines.
After washing and drying, clean linen automatically enters the rear-end overhead bag system. Bags have functions of temporary storage and buffering as well as automated sorting and conveying. It dynamically allocates conveying capacity based on the workload. Clean linen is delivered to each finishing position by conveyor belts. This eliminates common issues (such as linen accumulation, manual cart transfer, and waiting for linen). Production efficiency is significantly improved in traditional workshops.
Finishing Area
The finishing area is equipped with a high-speed ironing line and an overhead high-speed ironing line. This significantly reduces the skill requirements for operators. Workers only need to hang the linen. The equipment can automatically handle spreading, ironing, and folding. Production capacity is less affected by operating skills as well as staff fluctuations. This reduces the risk of production capacity decline caused by the loss of skilled workers.
The overhead spreading and ironing system can temporarily store linen. During the preheating and startup stage, workers can start hanging the linen. This makes the best of the preheating period and reduces idle waiting time. This further increases hourly production efficiency.
The Kingstar towel folder can automatically identify towel sizes. It automatically folds and stacks according to preset programs. Workers only place linen on the feeding platform. One towel folder can deliver the output of up to five workers.
RFID-Based Smart Packing and Dispatch
After ironing and folding, clean linen is delivered to smart packing systems by conveyor belts. Huachen specializes in hotel linen rental businesses. All linen sent to customers is tagged with industrial-grade heat-resistant RFID chips. Each linen item has its unique digital identity. They are resistant to high-temperature ironing. They remain functional after 100 wash cycles. During packing and delivery, the equipment automatically reads the data, such as hotel clients and linen specifications. Linen is automatically packed and delivered to the corresponding dispatch outlet. The back-end requires no packing or sorting workers.
An RFID bulk inventory scanning channel is installed at the dispatch area. The entire batch of linen can be scanned and recorded. The system generates standardized reconciliation reports. Linen is directly loaded and delivered to hotel clients. Dispatch and inventory counting require no workers. This thoroughly avoids incorrect linen counting, linen losses, and linen mix-ups.
Conclusion
From front-end overhead bag feeding, tunnel washer automatic washing, rear-end overhead bag smart routing, automatic ironing and folding, and RFID digital packing and dispatch, Kingstar smart equipment and WoT-based RFID systems develop a complete closed-loop process. This creates a new labor-saving production model for laundry plants.
After the smart upgrade solution is implemented, the labor costs are reduced by half. The plant achieves long-term stable reductions in labor costs. The production line ensures daily production capacity through automated operation. It is not affected by the loss of workers and difficulty in recruiting. The overall efficiency of receiving and delivery has improved. RFID digital management achieves full-lifecycle linen traceability. There are almost no errors in inventory counting. Reconciliation with hotel clients does not cause disputes. This addresses many issues (such as recruiting challenges, high-intensity labor, high labor costs, poor linen management, customer complaints, and reconciliation disputes).
For hotel linen processing and linen rental plants, the smart plant has reference value. It requires no skilled workers. It uses proper facility layout, automatic laundry logistics equipment, and RFID digital management. These solutions achieve four goals: labor reduction, production capacity improvement, quality stability, and refined management. This plant provides value for the digital transformation of traditional labor-intensive laundry plants.
Q&A
Q1: Does each linen at Huachen Laundry Plant have an RFID chip?
A1: Yes. Huachen Laundry Plant specializes in linen rental businesses.
Q2: Does rental linen increase the costs of laundry plants?
A2: Laundry plants equip their linen with RFID chips. So, this makes linen counting, receiving, and delivery easier. It also avoids linen mix-ups and losses. Besides, rental linen is made from cotton and polyester. Compared with cotton fabrics, they are easier to wash and iron. This does not increase costs in the long run.
Q3: Does rental linen support customization?
A3: Yes. Linen can meet the requirements of different hotels.
Post time: Sep-04-2026