Textile Management for Nursing Homes
Modern textile management from deister electronic ensures the efficient use of high-quality workwear for the Ulrike Caselato Care Team..
Ulrike Caselato has been providing professional outpatient and inpatient care for 20 years with her qualified specialists. Safety, trust, reliability and the highest quality are among the recognized strengths of her business. Given the continuous development and expansion of this successful company, the management of highquality service apparel has reached a complexity that requires an automated approach. A solution from the RFID specialist deister electronic now ensures perfection: a modern textile-management system that manages the daily distribution and return of workwear transparently and efficiently..
“Clothing is like a calling card for us,” says Ulrike Caselato, “it contributes to our reputation. Patients and relatives pay close attention when it comes to service quality and professionalism. Having a well-groomed appearance is very important today for caretakers.”
Textile care in their own laundry facilities
High-quality workwear is expensive – it has to be available at all times and be in perfect condition. Ulrike Caselato relies on manageable processes and controllable quality for cleaning: She prefers small, local laundries instead of well-known large service providers. But there have almost always been problems with the laundry inventory. “A certain turnover in staff is normal in our profession,” says Ulrike Caselato, “and in the past the workwear sometimes left the company with the employee. Some team members probably also washed their workwear at home, which of course is not allowed for hygienic reasons. It was nearly impossible to prevent this because the workwear could not be clearly assigned to the respective employee in organizational terms. Once a year or so I had to buy workwear again – more often than would have been expected under the normal and intended use. It was a complex and unfortunately also expensive problem,” says Ulrike Caselato with some annoyance.
Real-time laundry inventory and assignment
So the smart businesswoman decided to use fully-digital textile management from deister electronic. Intelligent laundry distribution and return cabinets from the texCabinet series were installed in two caretaking facilities. Each piece of clothing from the Caselato Care Team is now equipped with a robust UHF RFID transponder, allowing it to be assigned to the respective wearer in the laundry-management system. How does it work? Every employee has to register with their personal contactless ID card before taking out the workwear. Then the distribution cabinet opens – and the system registers exactly what has been taken out. The return station for used workwear is also equipped with a UHF reader: Which clothing is currently being used by which employee? Which workwear is currently in the cleaning cycle? Which caregiver last wore damaged clothing? Who “hoards” or steals workwear? Has a departing employee also returned everything? Which clothing is used how often? What quantities and combinations are really needed for daily work? All these questions can now be answered in the context of ongoing real-time inventory.
Always available, always monitored
“We now have our laundry management under control with the new system,” says Ulrike Caselato, praising the deister electronic system. “The apparel is available around the clock at the distribution cabinets, but we can clearly assign each piece to an employee. That’s how we ensure that the high-priced workwear really provides the return on investment (ROI) we expect – and it isn’t lost as dead capital in private linen closets or through dark channels. Employees also treat their clothes with more care if they know that they are registered in their name. Distribution can even be completely blocked if certain limits are exceeded by taking out and failing to return laundry.” The laundry-management system also contributes significantly to the simplification and rationalization of daily work in the caretaking sector. “To put it in a nutshell: I no longer have to worry about the whole area and can use my valuable time for my core business,” sums up Ulrike Caselato. “After all, we have more important things to do than to look for work pants. So we’re really pleased that the deister electronic specialists installed the system smoothly and in the shortest possible time, during operations – we owe a big compliment to this skilled service provider. The RFID identification system keeps my team and myself free of unnecessary burdens – because our focus should be on people, the work with the patient!”
Project Summary
Project Target
Individual assignment of workwear / Automated, transparent distribution and return / Loss eduction / Continuous inventory tracking
Challenge
Waste and unproductive use of workwear / Low ROI
Solution
RFID – based laundry management system with intelligent distribution cabinet (texCabinet)
Advantages
Higher ROI / Assignment of responsibilities / Efficient processes / 24-7 availability of workwear / Real-time inventory / Collection of user data