To Soil Count or Not to Soil Count - That is the Question!
Loading …For every laundry operator that believes soil counting is a must, there is another that says it’s unnecessary. Whether you are in the linen or industrial market, soil counting is a question that begs to be answered.
Scenario #1 - Some operators believe you are “flying blind” if you don’t soil count.
- How do I know what is truly happening to my inventory?
- How can I identify what is coming into my plant?
Scenario #2 - Others believe that soil counting takes up valuable space and costs too much money.
- Why do I want to invest in additional equipment and labor if my inventory costs are in line?
- What is the ROI?
Let us know what you think.
Soil counting is probably something you currently do, used to do, or are thinking about doing. We would love to hear about your experiences – positive, negative or otherwise. Feel free to post your comments.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:02 am
Hello Ed
We check the weight of the linen sent to what was sent back. To me the question is what do you do with the information. If you charge the hospital for all the loss you make them angry So you spend more in labor to make your coustomer angry. The replacement charge should cover normal loss, wear and tear.
Mark J. Hoenemeyer
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
we only count if we have a specific situation we want to monitor for a couple of weeks and even then it is at best a good estimate not having automated equipment to use. All factors considered I would rather count but have not invested in equipment to do it yet.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
We do not soil count, although we would like to. We don’t think we are large enough to afford a vacuum system.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:34 am
My plant is a COG plant serving only large hotels. We seperate but do not count unless a customer sends in a count with the soiled linen. If I was doing rental i would count.
Kenn Edwards
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 am
TO COUNT OR NOT TO COUNT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU WILL BILL YOUR CUSTOMER. IF YOU BILL AND DELIVER BASED ON A DELAYED DELIVERY SYSTEM YOU COUNT. IF YOU BILL AND DELIVER BASED ON A PAR DELIVERY SYSTEM THERE SHOULD NO REASON TO COUNT.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:06 am
We do not soil count. However we do weigh linen that arrives the plant. We do count only when inventory is being conducted. We would like to count linen that arrives the plant to know what is being sent.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Two concepts will drive the debate, history and money:
History: 20 years ago hospital laundries were predominantly “on-premise”. Linen losses were within the total control of the owner, the hospital. How they managed the loss, required a floor to laundry solutions. Often confined to one building.
Today large central laundries often own the goods, or the laundry owns the goods and each forces to other to account for the loss!
Money: The flood of low cost linen from the orient is over. Costs are no longer going down year on year. In fact industrial production costs in China not only bottomed but are rising faster than other locations. Switching to lower cost countries ceases to be a long term strategy.
The result, lowered costs will not cover the after 25% annual, non-retired linen, loss. Establishing loss point will become more critical to the dealings between hospitals and laundries each year going forward. Couple that with fixed price per lb. contracts and the price of energy, the party causing the loss must be identified and held accountable.
Now, start with the money trail. What is the value of non-retired linen loss. If that is eliminated, the return on investment for counting can be quickly established. Everyone in the chain will be forced to count.
Equipment or no, everyone will be forced to count.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:01 am
We are a linen supply only. we own all our linens and RENT them. we need to keep close records as possible!! there are many times we have to prove to our customers that somewhere towels,napkins,and garments are missing and by having counts atleast we have something to show them.
As far as counting is concerned we have to seperate anyway. so with the new systems out there they count all itiems as fast as we seperate anyway.
If someone can so me how to keep control of all my linens and save money I would love to here from them ,Thanks and this was a great question Steve
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
soil counting for linen in a rental situation is an absolute must. after 104 years doing this, i can tell you that if you dont count linen, you have massive amounts of linen out on the street. counting also insures accuracy of following weeks delivery and you can limit your replacement charges to only those that abuse and loose linen. why punish a good customer? soil sorting by customer is also a good way to flag customer abuse of goods, like burn holes and heavy soil. it also contols customers usage and keeps deliveries more steady. if you are not counting, i guarantee you are giving your client more linen than he turns in each week. soil counting is well worth the time and labor. guaranteed.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
We have three operations: Moultrie counts soil, Starke counts clean, Griffin uses a six month usage history. It all works and comes out the same.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
To count or not to count. Depending what segment of the industry you are in ( healthcare,linen,uniform ) your opinions will vary. Superior Healthcare quit counting linen 9 years ago. We were having inaccurate counts, items being ordered that were not necessary, etc. We were not good at identifying damaged linen or charging enough based upon inventories, except for a few items. No one wanted to go to the customer and say you owe me for 50 sheets, when in our own mind we weren’t sure we were accurate. When we decided to quit counting we actually got linen to floor quicker. We new what to order no more guess work. We now actually talk about lost linen up front with the customer and put a replacement in terms of percentage on all invoices. No more arguing with the customer. If you can keep your replacement per pound in the 10-12 cent range there is no need to count. Laundry’s biggest challenge today is employees. We are constantly looking for ways to reduce staff through normal nutrition, and not counting linen was one of those areas.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I think it is very important , for the type of work we are doing.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
i am not in the linen industry and i know there is no way you should be counting soil. whatever problem they are trying to solve by counting that stuff there is a better solution for sure.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
We are not the only people plagued with this question?
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Our soiled sort station was set up to count in 1990, for 5 years we recorded information percentage of loss by linen item and customer we learned what we always thought was true, we have high losses on the same linen items all plants have, wash cloths baby linen bath blankets so we added addition charge across the board on those items to cover losses what we found was the losses percentage was about the same for all hospitals,having said that we are in Omaha,Ne. in your larger Cities it is important to know your linen is returned I know of a few cases in fl. were soiled linen was stolen of trucks and shipped to other countries and sold for a fraction of its value.Once we stopped counting FTE’s in the dept reduced by 2.5 our linen replacement is consistant at 8.5 to 9.8 over past 15 years so I would much rather save the labor than have the count However it is nice to spot check customer and have the documentation if there is a concern.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hi Ed, We are in the linen rental supply business. We charge by the piece. After reading the above comments I would just ad that you can’t measure or control what you don’t count. Cost of goods as a percentage of sales would ski rocket. National Linen had over 100 plants that didn’t count. Now they are gone. I rest my case.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
very good David!!!!!!!
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Speaking as an owner of a small linen supply company, we find it imperative that all of our soil is counted. It’s at that point that we not only control our inventories but also determine who may be abusers. It’s very routine to not only bill for damaged merchandise at that point but to also return said merchandise to the abuser along with the damaged merchandise bill. While I wont be naive enough to say this is foolproof, I will tell you that we get rid af alot of our x merchandise by giving it back to the customers who is an abuser and for the most part they accept it without question. With so many variables in our industry that we can’t control why not take full advantage of every area that we can control.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Great idea to conduct these surveys. The need to soil count will grow with the rising costs of textiles and the availability of the products.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
It’s also about the bottom line. Are you making a net profit on a customer and how much? How do you know if a customer is costing you more money in the long run? If he is, why keep him? Let your competitor have him.
Soil counting is an idea that a company must totally commit to - form the driver’s and service rep’s to the office personnel. Everyone must sign-on to the idea for it to be fully effective. Your customer’s will likely appreciate the fact you are counting and not over-charging them. They don’t want to help pay for the next guy whose losing all your stuff.
Maybe you think your inventory costs are in line, but how do you know?
Many route drivers are simply delivery people, trying to serve customers well. But in their exuberance, they often will oversupply customers to keep them happy rather than manage the inventory level. Has the salesperson or account rep ever visited to check the supply level of the customer? Likely not. From the service perspective, the rental supplier wants a happy customer and may feel it is more important to avoid shortages than to worry about counts. But in the long run, the rental supplier may be over renting and significantly under charging the account.
What about losses and abuse? Will the customer automatically do all he can to reduce theft and hoarding? Probably not. What about those automatic replacement charges—you may be under or over charging each customer. Perhaps your competitors will undercut you by not charging this fee, or effectively charge less by charging losses at the actual rate—which, if measured, will likely decrease as the customer recognizes the benefit of reducing them by their own effort.
Today’s textiles are more durable and long lasting than ever. However, replacement costs are rising as well. When a dozen napkins cost $2.50, who cared about loss and abuse? Today, at $9 or more for a quality spun-poly napkin it’s a new game. And what about those high-value goods like tabletops and specialty items?
Now, more than ever, inventory management is the way to control merchandise costs. The only way to improve is to measure, and the only sure-fire way to measure inventory is to count soiled linens after arriving at the plant.
We have found that switching from a no count or hand count system reaps a two year or less ROI payback on equipment purchase. The reduction in employees and office staff manually entering counts are where the real savings are incurred.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:25 am
As you are aware, loss charges are very difficult to address in the healthcare laundry segment. Piece counting is a very cumbersome and expensive procedure that generally has limited financial benefit.
SHS is going to begin weighing incoming soil bins by account to compare with clean delivery weights. Soiled linen factors will be determined for each customer in order to determine excessive linen losses. Additionally, our new soiled linen sorting system will include several vacuum tubes for refuse disposal and piece count sampling. We envision counting wearing apparel.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:33 am
If you are actually going to use the information gained by soil counting, be it for billing or inventory control, it is worth the effort. If you collect the data, but do not actually use it for any reason, it is a waste of labor and should be eliminated.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Despite the fact that soil counting equipment is a major capital expense and requires a great deal of labor to run effectively, it is a necessity in may laundry facilities. I am not saying that all laundries should soil count, but I think each operation should look over their costs carefully and see if soil counting linens has a return on investment. Each operation needs to weigh their inventory costs and their revenues with the one-time expense of soil count equipment and the expected labor costs associated with its operation.
The bottom line is that every plant is different and what might work for some individuals will not work for others. We have numerous profitable clients who soil count and numerous profitable clients who do not soil count.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
In linen supply, this debate is really about counting on the dirty side vs. counting on the clean side. Counting soil is only important if you want to know what each customer uses and actually sends back to the plant, which customer is abusive, which customer has losses, and finally which customer is profitable. Counting on the clean side can make things simple, but it won’t give you true customer profitability. In view of increasing delivery costs, it may also be faster for the service rep to tag the soil than count the shelf and manage the returns. Not counting on either side works great for people who like to steal.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:30 am
we rent uniforms as a total package which includes,supply, replacements, cleaning, repairs,pickup and deleivery, all included in the weekly charge. As you would rent, a tv,a car, a dvd movies, tellephone, a computer, a house, office funiture, etc etc. So why count it. By a count you actually reverse the users responabilty and rights to be responable for the uniform. yes or no?? i say no. Have hard and fast depressed value for quits. Be up front at the point of saleing all accounts.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 am
What a great question, and what a good response! We have been watching this with great interest as we get asked this almost every day. When the question was released we were on our way to the Texcare show and then to the TRSA tour in Europe. We wondered if the question was as interesting to the plant operators over the pond, so decided to wait and report what we found there also.
The question of counting or not counting is both a simple and complex question. The simple answer is, of course, that true inventory control and proper management processes to “control cost” demands counting practices, and is a requirement for full accountability. Accountability a business will only achieve through counting and managing inventory assets.
The more complex question is what the business benefits of counting and not counting are, and how does this relate to each specific business model and operational format? If we look at each market segment of the textile maintenance industry one could make a case of why a plant may not feel they need to count and why they may feel it is imperative to count.
If you are processing hospital goods you may feel it is too slow to count such heavy items as bed linen and most laundries weigh and so weighing is accepted. Billing methods on par keeps the process simpler. But in retail medical almost all of our customers count. The items are more expensive and unique and the controls are not as tight and billing methods are different. In the restaurant business it seems to be more of a geographical competitive issue. The industrial side of the business has its reasons to count and not to count and is moving beyond just counting to specific identification via rfid chips.
Business Culture: It seems to be the same in Europe as here in the US, that the decision to count or not counting is a decision of “business culture”. In talking to many of the owners and managers we find that the culture to count is driven by the desire to manage via information. Not just data but specific data. A culture and desire to “do the best we can” and that is impossible without counting and the other data that drives management decisions.
An understanding and acceptance that by requiring complete separation of each incoming piece, inspecting and counting that piece, errors will be eliminated down stream. An example is in the food and beverage business model where counting not only gives you the amount of what each customer has returned and should get back in rental goods, but also by using modern methods of counting you can remove most of the debris and dirt, creating a cleaner batch to wash while helping to eliminate the fats and solids entering the wash water. This saves on cleaning chemicals and detergents, along with waste water charges. Counting can help remove the plastic and other items that cause problems in processing downstream, and help decrease post sorting, etc.
As competition becomes more intense and pricing more critical - counting inventories of textiles may become the best method of adding to the bottom line for textile rental.
We would like to thank Turn Key for bringing this question to a large audience at one time with a method for quick feed back. And, the feed back volume has been amazing.
Mike and Steve – Automation Dynamics – www.adllc.com