Having been in the laundry services business for industrial clients since 1979, Systematic Laundry and Healthcare Services is no stranger to the challenges that come with a changing economic landscape and the effects they have on businesses and jobs.
“In the 70s, it was common practice to see lobby laundry shops everywhere using kampung compounds or HDB compounds to hang garment at designated lots. They never used dryers.
“The first change for the industry I remember was when coin laundry machines were introduced. Now technology is becoming more and more integral in the laundry business,” said the company’s founder and current CEO TP Chan, 70.
Keeping up with Change
The company has kept pace with the change – In fact, Systematic Laundry was the first in the industry to incorporate RFID Technology to track clients’ laundry with more accuracy. It was first used during the Youth Olympic Games in 2010 and the company is currently implementing this technology for clients such as Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa.
In the area of serving general consumers, Systematic Laundry was facing the challenge of increasing rental and operational costs. As the laundry industry is currently labour-tight, with 70 per cent of its local workforce being over the age of 50, the company understands that the approach to serving their customers has to change.
“We’ve been in retail laundry for the last 30 to 40 years. We used to have 20 to 30 retail outlets with walk-in drop-offs taken care of by workers manning the counters and self-service coin laundry machines.
“That was our business model. Initially, our business was good but over the past few years, rental has gone up substantially,” said Mr Chan.
Currently, Systematic Laundry has about 10 outlets with three of them needing two to three workers to collect, tag and sort laundries for customers.
“We knew we had to rethink the way we do our business. And using technology seemed like a feasible way to do it [address the challenges the company was facing],”he added.
Riding on Technology
Earlier this year, the company came up with the Systematic Laundry ATM (Automated Transaction Machine) to provide self-help retail laundry services. The initiative was co-funded by NTUC’s e2i’s (Employment and Employability Institute) Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP).
To use the ATM, a customer just needs to register on the company’s database on a touchscreen found on the machine, pay through ezlink and drop the laundry into the machine. A team from the company would then collect the laundry and after washing, deliver it to the customer’s doorstep.
Currently in its pilot phase, the ATM is available at three condominiums in Newton, Sengkang and Choa Chu Kang. If successful, the company is looking to have more of these machines at various locations around the island.
With the introduction of the ATM, there will be an expected reduction of rental and operational cost by 60 per cent. According to Mr Chan, the ATM takes up only one-tenth of floor space when compared to the space usually needed to run a laundry service outlet. Manpower savings is expected to vary from 50 per cent to 90 per cent, depending on the number of ATMs deployed.
The company also said that its employees are expected to benefit from a pay increase of 8 per cent through shared gains.
“The outcome of this initiative will allow us to redesign the jobs of the workers at the traditional outlets. They will be redeployed to our plants and will learn to manage back-end office requirements,” said the company’s General Manger Lim Tian Heng.
