In the previous article, we discussed two reasons. This article will cover the remaining three reasons.
Market Competition and Distorted Procurement Models
Many people ask why, since these pieces of auxiliary equipment are important, some laundry equipment manufacturers don’t want to invest more in development. One of the important reasons is that there is long-standing fierce price competition in the Chinese market.
During the equipment procurement process, customers often make tunnel washers, ironing lines, and other core equipment as the key points of negotiation, and constantly lower the prices. To facilitate transactions, equipment manufacturers often have to lower prices and even package some auxiliary equipment or software systems that should be charged separately as gifts.
Many enterprises have invested a large amount of R&D resources to develop equipment, but this has lost its independent value on the quotation sheet and eventually become an additional condition in negotiations.
In such a market, laundry equipment manufacturers hardly use these products to get reasonable profits. Naturally, they lack the motivation to continuously invest in research and development.
Over time, a vicious circle will be formed: price competition → decline in corporate profits → reduction in R&D investment → product homogenization → more intense price competition.
Initial Investment and Return Period
Apart from the industry environment, the investment payback period is also an important reason for many laundry factory owners to hesitate.
Compared with traditional laundry plants, a complete automatic and intelligent system does need a higher initial investment. It includes costs in buying equipment and costs in software systems, logistics systems, and overall planning and design costs, etc.
However, many investors still use the profit model of traditional laundry factories for assessment when calculating the payback period. According to this logic, they often reach the conclusion that the investment payback period is relatively long. With the uncertainty of the market, some investors will naturally choose a more conservative approach to gradually transform and invest.
In the long term, this model may instead become the biggest obstacle to automation upgrades.
Many bosses hesitate about investing in automation because they are using an old yardstick to measure a new system. The returns brought by automation are far more than just reducing the wages of a few workers.
There are a lot of hidden costs in traditional washing factories.
● rewashing caused by unstable manual operation
● the compensation caused by damaged linen or lost linen
● failure to undertake large customer orders caused by insufficient efficiency
The value brought by the automated system is reflected in multiple aspects.
● More stable washing quality wins more quality customers.
● Higher production efficiency helps undertake more orders.
● More precise energy consumption control reduces operating costs.
● Stronger data management ability reduces errors in the production process.
As a result, an intelligent laundry plant is not only an upgrade of production tools, but also an upgrade of the business operation model of enterprises.
Without an overall plan, merely adding new equipment to the old system is like constantly installing new parts on an old ship. It is very difficult to truly transform it into a modern aircraft carrier. In the long run, laying out automated and digitalized laundry factories in advance is more likely to take the initiative in future market competition.
When a laundry factory can serve high-end customers with stable quality and achieve full-process traceability through a data system, it no longer needs to win the market through price competition. It can build its own competitive advantage through capabilities and services.
Absence of Industry Standards and Data Systems
There are two long-overlooked important factors at the industry level: standards and data. At present, only medical linen washing has relatively strict hygiene standards. The washing standards in the hotel, catering, and other fields still vary greatly.
The size, material, and processing requirements of linen are greatly different among different customers, which has brought great difficulties to automated sorting and process standardization. For an automated system, if the linen itself lacks standardization, it is difficult to achieve a highly automated production process.
In addition, many laundry plants still use traditional management methods. Some enterprises still rely on manual records or simple Excel spreadsheets to manage production and operation data and have a wait-and-see attitude toward professional laundry factory management systems. Without a unified management system, production, inventory, energy consumption, and human resource data are isolated from each other, so it is difficult for managers to do accurate cost analysis and efficiency assessment.
The core of an intelligent system is actually data-driven. Without stable data support, it cannot realize true intelligent management. The value of managing software is not only to digitize processes. More importantly, it is to build a digital brain for the factory. Only when the data is complete and the process is clear, can the intelligent system continuously optimize production efficiency.
From the industry perspective, the absence of a standard and data system is one of the biggest obstacles in the process of intelligent upgrading of the laundry industry.
When a laundry factory can standardize internal processes and build a complete data system, it has a clear competitive advantage. Only with the data can the enterprise truly understand its operating efficiency, without compromising the cost and quality of optimization.
For enterprises, it is better to actively promote their own digitalization and standardization construction rather than wait for the emergence of unified industry standards. When an enterprise can prove its own value with data, it is no longer only a participant in the industry but has the potential to become a rule-maker in the industry.
Post time: Mar-25-2026