RFID laundry rental management system: the key to efficiency

1. Project Background

Hotels, hospitals, government units and professional washing companies are facing to deal with thousands of pieces of work clothes and laundry’s handover, washing, ironing, finishing, storage and other processes every year. How to effectively track and manage each piece of laundry washing process, washing times, inventory status and effective classification of laundry is a great challenge. In response to the above problems, UHF RFID provides the perfect solution, the UHF laundry tag is embedded in the laundry, and the information of RFID cloth is bound with the information of the identified cloth, and the real-time tracking and management of the laundry is achieved through the acquisition of the label information by the reader device, forming the mainstream laundry rental management system on the market.

The laundry rental management system first gives each cloth a unique RFID tag laundry digital identity (that is, washable laundry tag), and uses the industry's leading data acquisition equipment to collect the status information of the laundry in every handover link and each washing process in real time to achieve the management of the whole process and the whole life cycle of the laundry. Thus, it helps operators to improve the circulation efficiency of laundry, reduce labor costs, and improve customer satisfaction. The leasing management system can grasp the situation of all aspects of laundry circulation in real time, and statistics the number of washing times, washing costs, as well as the rental number and rental costs of hotels and hospitals in real time. To realize the visualization of washing management and provide real-time data support for the scientific management of enterprises.

2.RFID laundry management system composition

Laundry rental management system is composed of five parts: UHF RFID washable laundry tags, handheld reader, channel machine, UHF RFID workbench, laundry tag washing management software and database.

RFID laundry tag’s characteristics: In the life cycle management of laundry, based on multiple factors such as high temperature resistance, high pressure resistance and impact resistance of the washing industry, the research data of the service life of the industry laundry is shown in the number of washing times: all cotton sheets and pillowcases 130~150 times; Blend (65% polyester, 35% cotton) 180~220 times; Towel class 100~110 times; Tablecloth, mouth cloth 120~130 times, etc.

• The life of the washable tags for laundry should be greater than or equal to the life of the cloth, so the washable RFID tag must be subjected to 65℃ 25min warm water washing, 180℃ 3min high temperature drying, 200℃ 12s ironing and finishing at 60 bar, high pressure pressing at 80℃, and a series of rapid machine washing and folding, experiencing more than 200 complete washing cycles. In the laundry management solution, the RFID washing tag is the core technology. Figure 1 shows the photo of the washable laundry RFID tag, which follows the laundry through each washing process, high temperature, high pressure, impact, and many times.
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Figue1 uhf laundry tag

Handheld reader: For supplementary identification of a single piece or a small amount of laundry. It can be a Bluetooth Handheld reader or an Android Handheld reader.

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• Channel machine: As shown in Figure 2, when a car of laundry needs to be packed or handed over, a large number of rapid identification is required. Generally, there are several hundred pieces of laundries in a car, and all need to be identified within 30 seconds. Washing plants and hotels need to be equipped with the tunnel machine. There are generally 4 to 16 antennas in the tunnel machine, which is designed to identify the cloth in all directions and prevent missing reads. For the laundries that needs to be recycled and washed again, it can also be counted through the tunnel machine.

An UHF workbench can be associated with a washing device. All laundry circulation is counted during normal operation, and the machine can automatically remove RFID cloth that exceed their working life when they are identified.

RFID laundry management system and database is the basis of the operation of the entire system, not only to provide customers with data, but also to help achieve internal management.

3. Working steps

The working steps of using UHF RFID laundry management are:

Sewing and registration: After sewing the UHF RFID washing tag to the laundry quilt, work clothing and other items, the coding information of the prefabrication rules of the rental management company is written into the laundry tag through the RFID reader, and the information of the laundry tag binding to the laundries is input in the background of the laundry management system, which will be stored in an independent web-based software system database. For mass management, you can also write information first and then sew.

Handover: When the cloth is sent to the washing shop for cleaning, the service staff will collect the cloth and pack it. After passing through the tunnel machine, the reader will automatically obtain the EPC number of each item, and transmit these numbers to the back-end system through the network connection, and then store the data to indicate that the part of the item has left the hotel and handed over to the washing plant staff.

• Similarly, when the laundries is cleaned by the washing shop and returned to the hotel, the reader scans the channel, the reader will obtain the EPC of all the laundries and send it back to the system background for comparison with the EPC data of the laundry sent to the washing shop to complete the hand-over work from the washing shop to the hotel.
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Internal management: Inside the hotel, for the laundry installed with RFID laundry tags, the staff can use the RFID handheld reader to quickly, accurately and efficiently complete the inventory work. At the same time, it can provide a quick search function, track the status and location information of the cloth, and cooperate with the staff to complete the work of taking the cloth. At the same time, through the statistical analysis function of the data in the background, the washing situation and life analysis of each single piece of laundry can be accurately obtained, which helps the management to grasp the key indicators such as the quality of laundry. According to these analysis data, when the laundry reaches the maximum number of cleaning times, the system can receive an alarm and remind the staff to replace it in time. Improve the service level of the hotel and enhance the customer experience.

4.System advantages

The system advantages of using RFID laundry management system are:

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• Reduce laundry sorting: The traditional sorting process usually requires 2-8 people to sort laundry into different chutes, and it can take several hours to sort all laundries. With the RFID laundry management system, when the RFID chip clothes passes through the assembly line, the reader will recognize the EPC of the laundry tag and inform the automatic sorting equipment to implement the sorting , and the efficiency can be increased by dozens of times.

Provide accurate cleaning quantity records: The number of cleaning cycles per piece of laundry is a very important data, and the cleaning cycle analysis system can effectively help predict the end of life date of each piece of laundry. Most laundry can only withstand a certain number of high-intensity cleaning cycles, more than the rated number of laundry begins to crack or damage. It is difficult to predict the end of life date of each piece of laundry without a record of the quantity washed, which also makes it difficult for hotels to develop ordering plans to replace old laundry. When the cloth comes out of the washer, the reader recognizes the EPC of the RFID tag on clothes. The number of washing cycles for that laundry is then uploaded to the system database. When the system detects that a piece of laundry is nearing its end-of-life date, the system prompts the user to reorder the laundry. This procedure ensures that businesses have the necessary laundry inventory in place, thus greatly reducing the time to replenish the laundry due to loss or damage.

Provide quick and easy visual inventory management: The lack of visual inventory management can make it difficult to accurately plan for emergencies, operate efficiently, or prevent laundry loss and theft. If a piece of laundry is stolen and the business does not conduct a daily inventory audit, the business may be exposed to potential delays in daily operations due to inaccurate inventory management. Washing systems based on UHF RFID can help businesses manage inventory faster and more efficiently on a daily basis.

• Readers placed in each warehouse carry out continuous inventory monitoring to help pinpoint where laundry is missing or stolen. Inventory volume reading via UHF RFID technology can also help businesses using outsourced cleaning services. The inventory quantity is read before the laundry to be washed is sent away and again after the laundry is returned to ensure that no laundry is lost during the final washing process.
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Reduce loss and theft: Today, most businesses around the world use simple, human-dependent inventory management methods to try to count the amount of laundry that is lost or stolen. Unfortunately, human error in counting hundreds of pieces of laundry by hand is considerable. Often when a piece of laundry is stolen, the business has little chance of finding the thief, much less getting compensation or return. The EPC serial number in the RFID laundry tag gives companies the ability to identify which laundry is missing or stolen and to know where it was last located.

Provide meaningful customer information: Businesses that rent laundry have a unique way to study user behavior, which is to understand customers through the RFID cloth tag on the rental laundry. The UHF RFID-based washing system helps record customer information, such as historical renters, rental dates, rental duration, etc. Keeping these records helps companies understand product popularity, product history, and customer preferences.

Achieve accurate check-in and check-out system management: The laundry rental process is often very complex, unless the business can establish a concise store such as rental dates, expiration dates, customer information and other information. The UHF RFID-based washing system provides a customer database that not only stores important information, but also alerts businesses to small things such as when a laundry expiration date is approaching. This feature allows companies to communicate with customers about the approximate return date and provide it to customers rather than just providing customers with an assumed return date, which effectively improves customer relationships and in turn reduces unnecessary disputes and increases laundry rental revenue.