Washable RFID Tags

Washable RFID Tags

Commercial Launderers and Dry Cleaners present specific challenges when implementing RFID tracking solutions for Garments/Linen.

Evolution of RFID Transponder technology to ones suitable for Washing Applications

Standard RFID Transponders (Chips) were designed for warehouse and logistics applications typically used to scan static boxes on warehouse racking. They work wonderfully if you have static pieces evenly spaced out across a warehouse. However they were never meant to be used in the harsh moving environments typically encountered in a Laundry setting. RFID Transponder manufacturers such as ThermoTex went back to the drawing board to design specific transponders to suit washing and ironing applications.

Transponders that can handle repeated Washing!

This led to the establishment of the F1 and F2 standard transponders currently in use today. These chips can handle repeated washing (usually tested for over 200 cycles), high pressure water extraction as well as sustained heat and pressure resitance which is a prerequisite when irnonig using a Calander. Specialised chip antennae arrays as well as heat applied adhesives complete the suitability of these transponders.

Add to this RFID’s technology’s specific requirements, careful consideration needs to be utilised to get the best from RFID tracking. The two prevalent systems are HF (High Frequency) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency).

High Frequency Systems

HF has a reading distance, for Laundry Processing of 300-500mm. It is suitable for single item or small bundle (Less than 20 pieces) scanning.  HF has a distinct advantage over UHF in that it can be read even if the item is damp or even wet.

Ultra High Frequency Systems

UHF has a reading distance, for Laundry Processing, of up to 3 metres. As it has a faster read rate than HF, around 50 items per second, it is more suitable for bulk scanning. Entire cage trolleys with 250 items can be scanned within 5 Seconds. Manual counting can take up to twenty minutes and is prone to human error in correctly counting and/or identifying the type of items returned.

How RFID Technology allows for Inventory Tracking

An area of difficulty for most laundries is to check that their customers are returning all of the soiled linen. With UHF Technology, this is achieved at the entrance to the Laundry, usually through a RFID Gate or Cabinet. Gates/Cabinets are sized so that full cage trolleys can be rolled through/in as part of the Driver’s offload duties. The Transponders (often called Chips) are automatically scanned and the relevant information transferred to a Laundry Management Software solution (LMS).

When using HF technology, antenna are normally placed on conveyors or suitable alternate sorting areas. As items are offloaded onto the conveyor/sorting table, they are automatically scanned in. UHF Technology can also be used in this instance but careful adjustment of the Antenna’s read range and profile is required to avoid inadvertently scanning items nearby.

For further information about how TEX-ID can help you, please call us now on 020 8749 6610

Laundry Automation

Following the mass availability of RFID and associated bulk reading systems, Laundries are now able to integrate various methods of automation previously carried out by manual labour. This automation provides a much higher level of accuracy, dependability and speed when compared to manual processes.

Manual Counting of Laundry Items

The first area of automation occurs at the entry point to the Laundry, where garments are counted on arrival into the laundry process. Laundry items include:

• Pillowcases
• Sheets
• Duvet Covers
• Napkins
• Tablecloths

All these are very time consuming, requires in depth knowledge of every item processed and is typically only 85-90% accurate.

By adding RFID Antenna and readers at entry, Laundries are able to digitally “count” 50 items per second, to an accuracy rate of 99%+ as all the items are fitted with chips which relate its specification to a central database.

How RFID Antennas Track items

Following on from this entry scans, strategically located RFID Antennas can digitally track items as they are processed throughout the facility and arriving at the packing/sorting area.

Packing and Sorting Laundry

Packing and sorting is sped up with greatly improved accuracy provided by Laundry Management Software (LMS) which creates a “pick” list of items required for delivery and directs the staff on how much and what to pack into hampers and cages. A final exit scan using RFID confirms the items are ready for despatch to the Client.

For further information about how TEX-ID can help you, please call us now on 020 8749 6610

Tuning laundry to the right radio frequency

It started with the Managing Director of White Rose Laundries, Ejaz Osmani, asking me to look into RFID technology to further reduce his already low loss rate of customer flatwork.

At first the request puzzled me as we had already upgraded to Barcode Technology and I couldn’t see the benefit of using a different asset tracking system. Was barcoding failing us in some way? Did we incorrectly implement the technology? An investigation was required.

Tagging

My first stop was our sorting and tagging area. After observing our processes, I discovered that the barcode tags were technically doing their job and registering the items correctly into our ePOS system, SPOT. The first issue I noticed was the time it took to find the barcode labels on a large bed sheet or duvet cover. The operators had been trained to place the barcode label in a suitable corner of the linen. As we had decided on a small form factor Heat Seal Label (HSL) of 7mm x 25mm, sometimes the labels themselves weren’t being spotted during sorting, resulting in the operator applying an unnecessary second label. I must stress this happened very rarely.

This in itself wasn’t a real issue as SPOT registered the item as a new item. The problem arose when we scanned the item after it had been folded and was ready for packing. If the operator at the packing station scanned the first barcode label, then we couldn’t figure out which lot the item belonged to.  As a workaround, the packing operator started looking at the customer name, which we also had on the HSL.

Over time, when the packing station operators were under time constraints, they bypassed reading the barcodes and would just look at the customer’s names and pack the lots accordingly; we were moving backwards.

Wash, Press & Fold

The next area I looked at was the wash and pressing processes.  I had heard horror stories from other Laundries of HSL’s being unreadable after an 85 degree wash cycle as well as coming off when being put through their ironer. Luckily we had worked very closely with ThermoTex, to choose the correct label specification and Thermal Transfer Printers. We had perfectly readable labels throughout the wash/press process.

Moving onto folding, I noticed that the staff were making an effort to expose the barcode label so that packing could read it. Though I applaud the team handover courtesy, it did mean that one corner of the folded linen was slightly askew. We learnt a long time ago that when it comes to retail flatwork; presentation is everything.

Coming back to the packing area, I was relieved to see the staff were scanning the barcodes and then “tidying” the folding. They did have to look for the labels on a few of the larger linen pieces.

Overall we were doing a pretty good job but as I had been given the assignment, I had to learn what benefits Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) could give us.

Introduction to RFID

Working closely with ThermoTex, I learnt that everything starts with what type of transponders you use. The transponders themselves range from 7mm to 16mm diameter. They are attached to linen either by being placed in a pouch and then, either sewn in place or heat sealed much like a HSL.

The way they work is to lie dormant waiting for an antenna to send out a signal asking them if they are “there”. When they receive the signal, the transponder wakes up and sends a return signal saying, “Yes, I’m here”. The return signal from the transponder is an alphanumeric digit set usually 15 characters long, but this can vary. Some transponders also have the ability to be encoded with a small amount of user defined data.

The oldest technology, Low Frequency (LF) was discounted due to very limited performance and controllability (mis-scanning). Current technology is either High Frequency (HF) or Ultra High Frequency (UHF). LF and UHF are subdivided into performance categories typically grouped as F1 and F2. The main physical differences are that UHF adds antenna wires to the transponder giving it incredible read distances and better bulk scanning properties. A high quality HF transponder can be read from up to 30cm away and a high quality UHF transponder from up to 3 metres away.

Once you have chosen the appropriate transponders, you then have to decide on what type of antennae and readers you need. These range from compact combined units that mount under a packing table to tunnels mounted on conveyors or Gates/Cabinets where the trolleys are either passed through or parked allowing everything in the trolley to be scanned.

If we were doing large quantities of similar flatwork, such as those from a Hotels or Medical institutions, UHF wins hands down. The speed at which it can scan when presented with a trolley full of linen can be measured in seconds to a few minutes. Compare that to hand counting and it is really the only way to go.

HF can bulk scan but the design of the antennae and readers is more restrictive (limited reading distances) than UHF. If anything it seems that UHF product designers at ThermoTex spend most of their time shielding the antennae from reading transponders that are near the antenna but not to be scanned.

As this article is not an in depth analysis of the technologies, I thought the above is sufficient.

RFID in Action

Bearing in mind we wanted to apply RFID to customer’s linen, I started putting together a process which could address the bypassing of barcoding which I discovered during my investigation, in addition to seeing if we could reduce the number of steps and save some time.
We received the linen in plastic bags with individual lots of customer’s cleaning. Customers sent linen only bags as well as assorted garment bags. I needed a system that could individually scan the linen RFID as well as the barcodes on the garments. Mark Reynolds from SPOT guided me on how to set this up and it took all of five minutes.

Though UHF can be detuned to scan individually, I feared it might read items other than the one I wanted to be scanned. In the end I went for an HF system. Using a mid-range table antenna mounted under the sorting table and a separate reader mounted on the wall and connected to a SPOT terminal, we were able to pass the linen over the table area over the antenna. If it already had an RFID transponder then this entered automatically into our ePOS. If it didn’t scan we then knew to put one on.

The reason we went with a mid-range antenna was that this had better scanning ability to the full height of HF transponders (30cm). A crumpled up, soiled king size duvet cover could be taken straight from the plastic bag and passed over with very accurate read results. The construction of the antenna was very robust with metal shielding on the bottom to prevent interference from metal objects below the antenna and any possibility of mis-scanning any items not on top of the table.

At the packing station, I chose a compact combined antenna/reader with smaller height readability.  As the items were already folded and had very little height, I was able to save a little money compared to the separate mid-range antenna and separate reader.

I presented my findings and was asked to proceed. Once the product arrived, we installed it with relative ease and connected it via plug and play on our Windows based PC’s in the sorting/tagging and packing area.

At this stage, a bit of a panic set in. Early adopters of this technology have typically been laundry owned/rented or Hotel/Medical Institution linen. We were going to put it on customers linen.  Would they accept this? What if the transponder failed? How will I know which customer the item belongs to?

When we implemented barcoding I had similar concerns, which turned out to be unfounded. As for the possibility of transponders failing, we decided to put the 16 digit alphanumeric character set in both human readable and 128 barcode form, from the transponder onto a HSL.  While we’re at it, why not continue to put the customer’s name on as well.

Again working with Mark Reynolds at SPOT and ThermoTex’s excellent support team we devised a system to do this automatically.
Everything was swiftly put in place but at the last minute, our production supervisor raised an objection; the HSL was too long.  We had been using 8 digit 128 barcoding prior to this exercise. When we switch to 16 digit alphanumeric characters to match the transponder’s set, the barcode was twice as long as our old labels.

After a bit of head scratching, I remembered looking into 2D barcodes a while back.  As the scanner prices were higher than 128 scanners, we decided at the time to stick with 128. By shelling out for two new scanners, one for the sorting area and one for the packing area, I could use a 2D Datamatrix code.

The label size shrunk back to the size we used previously. In addition, the 2D scanner did not need to line up horizontally (as they do with 128) to read the code.

Customer Acceptance

One niggling concern remained on customer acceptance. We made the decision to go ahead and if any customer complained, we would remove the transponder and just use the new, 2D barcodes. For any items that may be wiped across a person’s face, such as napkins or towels, we decided also to only use barcodes. The concern being the customer experience of wiping a transponder across their mouth at the end of a meal or after shaving might not be too pleasant.

We implemented the system several weeks ago. On the customer side, I am pleased to report no one has complained yet nor have we mis-delivered a single linen item.

On the production side, no other upgrade has received such a positive response from staff.  Usually I get comments from staff such as “I liked the old way better” or “did we really need to change?” This time, I actually got compliments on how it had made their lives easier.

Reflective Summary

The sorting process when compared to barcode scanning is much faster.  A quick wipe over the table and it’s done. No longer hunting around looking for an HSL barcode label.

Same with the packing station. A quick wipe and you instantly know which cubby hole to place the item in. The best experience was the one that didn’t come up, namely, teething – there wasn’t any. Perhaps we were extremely lucky or the combined project team with ThermoTex and SPOT had the tacit knowledge to make this happen without the usual hiccups. All I know is that I am extremely grateful for this result.

We are now looking into the ePOS side of assisted assembly for linen. This will direct the operator to which cubby hole to place the linen and alert the operator when a lot is complete. With great excitement, I shared this with Ejaz Osmani. His response, “Could you look at an assisted assembly hardware system with light bars, for linen that works as well as Metal Progetti does for garments?  Well, I guess I know what my next project is.

What have you got to lose? A look at garment loss at retail dry cleaning shops

That sinking feeling you get when you have spent the better part of the day carefully tagging, spotting, cleaning and pressing your customers’ clothes only to assemble the order to find one blouse is missing from their lot.

Where could it go?

You know you received it. The ticket says so. You go back to the tagging area and work your way through the processing areas and if lucky, you find the blouse has slipped behind the spotting table or left at the bottom of a basket.  Phew, disaster averted.  If you’re not that lucky, you start checking the completed lots, maybe the “9” was actually a “6” on the tag, and I misallocated the blouse?
Once you’ve quizzed the staff and they don’t recall seeing it, the sinking feeling turns into one of resignation of the inevitable to inform the customer.

Sound familiar? Unfortunately it should.

Lost items might account for up to 3 in every 100 pieces we process. Looking at the root causes of misplaced garments, let’s start from the beginning of the process.

When booking customer garments into your system, the simplest system is with a ticketing book with tear off tags. Hand written tickets show what garments have been received, a copy is handed over to the customer and the numbered “tags” are pinned to the garments.
As this is a slow system, during busy periods, the person on the till hands the customer their copy and puts the tags in the bag the clothes came in. Later, when the counter is less busy, tags are pinned to each garment. As there are only a fixed amount of tags per ticket, sometimes it is necessary, with larger lots, to use additional pre-printed paper tags to make up the difference. Some cleaners use prep-printed paper tags instead of the ones that come with the ticket books.

The problem with this manual system are threefold. The first issue is the lack of durability with paper based tags. If the tags disintegrate or is pulled of the safety pin/staple in modern day cleaning processes, there is no way of knowing who the garment belongs to. The second is mixing and matching tags. When piecing up, the tacit knowledge required to match up two sets of numbers, one from the ticket book tags and the other from the pre-printed tags, represents a memory challenge which may result in incorrect lot completion.
The third is the environment where the tags are attached. Space is always at a premium in a Retail unit. Usually tagging takes place at the counter. Unless a strict methodology of only tagging one lot at a time is adhered too, one lot gets mixed with another. The error is only discovered at the piecing up phase.

For those of us fortunate enough to have invested in an ePOS system, the “cash register” itself prints the tickets and the required number of tags, while the customer is still in the shop. Higher quality ePOS system allow you to enter descriptive of the garment (Manufacturer, type, i.e. trousers, colours, patterns, etc.), the due date and perhaps a bar code on the tags themselves, as well as keeping a “memory” of the lot. Provided the tags don’t come off during the washing processes, piecing up becomes very straightforward. Even if the odd tag does come off, matching the garment to the lot is still achieved by looking into the ePOS record for the customer.

Moving on to the inspection and spotting areas, it seems the major issue lies with the space we allocate. As previously stated, space is always at a premium. Items can drop down the side or back of a spotting station or be left behind when segregated for a more intense spotting session.

Garments are often segregated depending on wash processes (lights, darks, delicates, etc.) and/or promised delivery dates.  A plethora of baskets, bins, and trolleys are available in the market to hold these segregated batches.  How often do garments get left behind in the bottom of one of these containers?  Perhaps we “conveniently” place net bags at the bottom of the basket, for the person loading a washing or dry cleaning machine, to have to hand. Those same net bags end up hiding garments underneath them.

Rewashes and represses are an interesting area of loss. As we expect things to start at one end and finish at the other in a given time, anything that is delayed due to reprocessing, is wrongly identified as lost as it does not arrive at piecing up at the same time as the rest of the lot’s garments.  If one hasn’t set up quarantine rails to hold these items, they could be hanging anywhere.

At the piecing up area, the employee is under a time pressure to complete the lots in time for the customer to collect. If their fortunate, J hooks segregate lots as the printed tickets hang on a clip directing the piecing up.  If the J hooks are too close together, than there is the possibility of putting the garment in the wrong place. Split lots, offer their own challenges. Some of the items are on hangers, and the others folded. Using a manual system requires an in depth knowledge of how things work. Modern ePOS system can split the tickets at booking in, allowing the lots to be treated separately. This greatly reduces errors at this stage.

For those of us that have to physically move garments from the piecing up area to the bagging area, great care is required so one doesn’t pick up too many or too few hanging pieces during the move. With multiple piece lots, the bagger needs to ensure he is tying the correct items together during the polyrobe process. This mistake is a difficult one as it only comes to light when a customer gets his lot home and discovers too many or too few pieces.

Once packed, lots have their tickets attached with tape or staples. The tags are sometimes removed and either discarded or attached to the polyrobe. Should the ticket fall off due to the tape failing, care is needed to make sure it is attached to the particular lot it came off of.  Finally the customer hand over may be a stage whereby the incorrect lot is delivered or multiple lots are delivered.

The above is by no means an exhaustive list but areas where we can all study in greater detail to reduce the risk of Garment loss.
My recommendation is for a thorough examination of the processes and consideration given to upgrading our systems, space utilisation and processes to mitigate the chances of losing garments in the first place.

So how much is losing garments actually costing us as a business? The obvious answer is the amount of compensation we pay customers but this is only part of the whole amount. In addition to the compensation, will we lose a loyal customer? Will the unhappy customer tell others within the local community of their poor experience? Indeed, will they post a bad review on the numerous ratings systems now available on the internet?

Compensation hits our financial bottom line our net, not gross profitability. The lost man/woman hours searching for the garments, dealing with irate and disappointed customers as well as our hurt pride of not delivering the best service all lead to a significant issue in our business.

Sitting down and examining how much compensation has been paid over a quarter, or even the last year, will highlight how serious the issue might be.

Trade organisations have developed fair calculation methods of how much we should compensate customers for losses. The start point is the original purchase price. Not surprisingly, most customers don’t keep their clothes shopping receipts, so an amount of good faith is required during negotiations. Again, the records held in ePOS can help reinforce the good faith by providing a history of how many times the items was cleaned, over what time period, the manufacturer, etc.

When customers can see from their ePOS generated ticket, the name of their garment’s manufacturer, it becomes rather difficult for them to claim it is from an exclusive Italian boutique!

Developing a friendly and informed customer relationship is one of the keys to deal with lost garment compensation. We all know the difficulties in enforcing a “ten times cleaning value” contract term printed on the customer ticket. Would it make sense to print an A4 sheet of paper demonstrating your fair and reasonable compensation policy and hand/explain this to a customer with a potential loss?  Is now the time to consider joining/finding out more about the reconciliation and compensation schemes provided by trade organisations?
I have deliberately stayed away from attaching values to the losses we incur when garments are lost. That number will be unique to each business and this article is meant to highlight the issue for you to carry out a more depth financial analysis. If you find that you are getting it more or less right, then great. If not, I hope I have been able to shed some light on where it could be improved and how to better deal with it.

Deciphering the code – A look at barcoding to aid in garment cleaning from a layman’s prospective

For most of us the first we become aware of a bar code is when an item doesn’t scan at the till during a shopping trip.  We watch bemused as the item is tilted one way and the next until the till attendant gets fed up and enters the numbers at the bottom of the bar code.

This is in fact the end of the technology cycle and whether it is a can of soup or a shirt from a loyal customer given for washing, the processes are much the same. An item is assigned a series of numbers and/or letters in a particular sequence and then that assigned set of alphanumeric digits are given attributes. Depending on which type of barcode system is used, this set of numbers only or alpha numerical sequences are the turned into a series of lines of different thicknesses forming a bar code.

This is where the similarities end.  The needs of the food industry are very different from the needs of the Cleaning industry.  We want to track the garment to be cleaned through our facility and make sure they are returned to their rightful owner and therefore, need to assign attributes relating to the owner of the garment as well as any physical attributes of the garment itself.  Even if the exact same garment came in from two different owners we need to know which one belongs to which owner.

In the case of the soup can it is usually the manufacturers name, contents, weight etc. Every soup can of the same manufacture, weight, contents etc. has the same bar code. The sequence of digits is then assigned (leased) to the owner of the code by a relevant controlling body.  It cannot be duplicated by another manufacturer so the supermarkets are assured.  The controlling body also sets up the way sequences are set up and assigns numbers.

So who’s the controlling body for the cleaning industry?

Well, there isn’t one that I could find.  We are left to our own devices which, on the one hand, saves us from having to lease barcodes but then leaves it to the industry to decide the best type of bar code and best use.
Looking at the bewildering array of bar code types out there, our options were the result of polling two suppliers, SPOT Computerised Systems for our ePOS system, and Renzacci UK Plc for our Metalprogetti Assisted Assembly system.  The resulting shortlist of bar code types where 128, type 39 and 2/5 interleaved.

Examining the benefits of each reveals that type 128 is a very robust code as it has a check digit in front and at the end of the main code.  These check digits are a mathematical value of the numbers present in the sequence and when read with a scanner, will confirm that the entire code has been read.  If the maths don’t add up then the sequence is not entered.  The operator can then represent the garment in a different position and/or check if the barcode itself is damaged.

Type 39 or Code 39 has an option for a single check digit but mainly relies on a start and end character thereby “Self Checking”.  Both 128 and 39 have been adopted by the US’s Health Industry Business Communication Council for use in the Health Care Products industry.

2/5 Interleaved is a little different in that most other codes, 128 and 39 included, only read the width of the black bars.  2/5 Interleaved also reads the spaces between the bars.  An option is available for check digit as well.  I understand that some other ePOS providers prefer this code above all others due to its accuracy of reading.  The actual barcode is very compact compared to 129 or 39.
At the time, we took the recommendation of our supliers and went with type 128.  Since then, we have seen the emergence of Data Matrix codes or as I like to call them, bar codes for the 21st century.  You may know them as QR codes.  These are very compact and rarely misread.  At the time of our installation, we rejected Data Matrix as the 2D scanners they required were much more expensive than standard ones.  Since then, the price has fallen significantly.

Once we had chosen the barcode type we were then set to start integrating it with our ePOS and Assembly systems, or so we thought.  Turns out choosing the barcode is a single step into what became a bit of a journey.

The first question to answer was who was going to supply the printed barcodes. 

For expediency we purchased pre-printed barcode permanent labels and a heat seal machine.  These were sequentially numbered so when reordering we would have to advise the supplier of the last number used so we didn’t duplicate numbering.  We have since purchased a dedicated thermal transfer printer from ThermoTex and their specialist software, so we can preprint rolls and have the added benefit of putting the customer’s name on the label.  Our next step is to do away with the specialist software and actually use SPOT to generate the heat sealed permanent labels complete with the customer’s name and a bar code.

We then had to address what information to assign to the bar code in our ePOS software.

We ended up assigning the owner’s name, garment colour/pattern, manufacturers name and any specific issues (delicate, tear on sleeve, etc.)  SPOT was especially suited for this application and stored the information with relative ease.

The final step was to make sure that the bar code was assigned to the individual lot.  Again this was something that SPOT handled with relative ease.

Collaborating with SPOT and Renzacci made the entire process pretty straight forward.  The last thing we needed to do was to set up a system for the operators in the tagging area.

When garments were received from regular customers, the operators were trained to look for the bar code heat seal labels in predetermined locations on each type of garment (i.e. bottom of shirt buttonhole seam…).  If we had already applied a label, we simply scanned the bar code and the tagging process ended.  This saved us enormous amounts of time.  If no label was present we simply applied one in the same time it took us to pin a tag onto a garment and registered its attributes into SPOT.

At the end of the pressing cycle, we simply scanned the garment and the automatic sorting and bagging stations from MetalProgetti took care of the rest.  We experienced an immediate reduction of misplaced items, lost items and mixed lots.  In addition we started to notice some unexpected benefits.

Having the ability to assign specific attribute to a garment via the bar code meant we were able to alert customers of issues with their garment at a much earlier stage.  With this even if a customer had forgotten we had advised them of a tear in their garment three clean cycles ago, when they called to complain we had a record in our ePOS of when we first alerted them and their response at the time.
We had been providing a dirty clothes bag to our most loyal customers but had no way of making sure the same bag went back with their cleaned lot.  By applying bar code labels to these bags they were simply added to the lot in our ePOS and this ensured they were recycled time and time again.

Analysing our customer’s patterns, namely, what frequency their garments were cleaned, how long/how many washes before they discarded a garment, what types of garments did they get cleaned/never send by omission, etc. helped us to identify promotions which were very specific and of most benefit to our customers. All this was the result of some lines of different thicknesses called a bar code.

As I stated in the beginning, I am no expert when it comes to this technology and urge you to seek the advice of those in the know to properly guide.  In my case, they were the suppliers of the machinery, Renzacci UK Plc and ePOS software, SPOT Computerised Systems.

So what’s next?

We are looking at implementing both a RFID and Data Matrix code for our customer’s domestic linen.  Hopefully I will be in a position to share my experiences with these new systems in a future article.