1 With the laundry industry growing in Singapore, companies have to re-look at operating their laundry businesses to remain competitive. Over the years, conventional ways of washing clothes have changed. Many companies in the industry now rely on machinery and automation to process large quantities of laundry.
2 Today, 40 union leaders, together with NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say, embarked on a Learning Journey to Zero Spot Laundry Services to find out how this local small and medium enterprise (SME) leverages on technology to save time and costs and provide an integrated laundry service. In this way, the company goes beyond improving its own productivity and gain-sharing with its workers; it also helps its customers improve their productivity.
3 Zero Spot Laundry Services provides linen, work wear, dry-cleaning and laundry services to various hospitality and healthcare organisations in Singapore. To grow its business, Zero Spot felt that the company had to explore automation as the business was constrained by manual and semi-automated processes. Servicing a big customer such as the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort with approximately 10,000 pieces of linen and towels, and 12,000 staff uniforms to launder on a daily basis, the company must ramp up its output very quickly to meet the demands.
4 “As the company expands, we have to re-evaluate our work processes and find ways to operate in a more efficient manner. In the early days, the industry required workers to work in a hot environment, doing very physical work. With automation, not only do we see an increase in the productivity of our workers, higher cleaned laundry output with cost savings; we are also able to create a better work environment for our staff, enabling them to do less manual work, learn new skills with some who are re-deployed to do higher-value functions,” said Mr Alex Teo, Chief Executive Officer of Zero Spot.
5 The company tapped on NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP) and implemented two projects to boost productivity and share the gains with its workers. An automated folding machine and RFID (radio frequency identification) sorter have been installed at one of its three plants to improve productivity on the production floor.
Automated Folding Machine and System
6 Zero Spot’s previous folding processes could only yield 200 pieces of linen and towels per hour with about five workers per shift. With e2i’s funding, the company acquired a new folding machine and system from Germany. The automation process increases output by 3.5 times to 900 pieces per man hour with only two operators needed to perform the task, achieving a productivity increase of 1025% in output per man hour!
Automate Sorting with RFID and Conveyor System
7 To cope with the demand of the sheer number of uniforms it has to handle every day, Zero Spot enhanced its operations with an automated sorting conveyor system with RFID recognition to sort the various types of uniforms. Previously, the 12,000 pieces of uniforms were manually sorted and required at least seven workers to go through at 1,000 pieces per hour. That took 12 hours to complete the sorting. The new conveyor system with RFID recognition can sort the various types of uniforms in less than two hours. With the time savings, the company could redeploy manpower to handle increased orders in the other areas of work.
Sharing Gains with Workers
8 35 local workers would be able to enjoy at least a 10 per cent annual increment and at least 1 month additional performance bonus if they perform well.
There are also opportunities for them to acquire skills to operate the new machines, or be multi-skilled to handle various job functions.
9 Mr Ang Hin Kee, Chief Executive Officer of e2i said: “Zero Spot did not just stop at raising productivity in its production plants, but has set its sights at helping their customers to be more productive as well. The company has plans to deploy their system and technology at their customers’ workplace so that the processing of laundry can be integrated and speed up processes at both ends, resulting in even higher productivity.”
10 The Labour Movement is pursuing productivity improvements and is continuing to mobilise workers to achieve higher levels of skills, innovation and productivity so as to achieve inclusive economic growth. It hopes the example of Zero Spot will inspire other companies to automate their operations or be innovative to improve productivity and bring about better gains for their workers.
