From laundry to customer? Industry experts highlight the possibilities of textile tracking.

Hands-on experience from the industry

The value of the textile care industry lies not only in its facilities, but also in the textiles themselves. While buildings and machinery are stationary, duvet covers, work jackets and uniforms circulate between the laundry, the customer or wait in storage for their next use. With so much movement, it’s easy to lose track. Knowing where different volumes of linen are at any given time is therefore essential: complete visibility forms the basis for cost control, profitability analysis, customer service and procurement.

There are various approaches to tracking the location of every item. While these methods may differ in their implementation, they all share a common foundation: each textile is digitally tagged, allowing it to be traced through every stage of the process. This tracking data can be retrieved at any time and provides key processing details. But such systems don’t work on their own – without data exchange and integration, they are, quite simply, useless.

How can an optimal data flow be achieved in a laundry operation?

Matthias Schäfer, Kannegiesser (Vlotho): Data is essential in any laundry operation. However, a business should always ask itself what value the information brings and how digitalisation can support, streamline, and control processes to increase efficiency. In our experience, tracking individual items throughout the laundry workflow involves considerable effort – especially as item-specific data is typically only required at the outbound stage, when sorting by person or customer.

Until then, laundry can pass through the facility in clearly labelled batches. For example, at the sorting station we assign each batch a unique identifier (ID), which acts like a label and is carried through each subsequent process step. This ID enables us to monitor the entire processing cycle of the batch without needing detailed information on each individual textile.

At Kannegiesser, all machines are networked in such a way that they can exchange this data with each other. Interfaces between different systems ensure smooth and straightforward data transfer and integration. The key challenge – and at the same time the foundation of digitalising the laundry process – lies in seamless communication between all machines.

On the trail of each individual item

Instead of tracking laundry by batch, it is also possible to follow individual items through each stage of the process – using RFID technology. This involves the interaction between transponders and readers. The principle is familiar from retail theft prevention: transponders attached to textiles communicate with a reader when they enter its detection range.

However, while a loud alarm may sound in a shop when a tag passes the gate, in the textile care industry the concept enables fast and silent data transmission. As in retail, the exchange of information can happen over short distances – or up to 7,000 cm away. In the former case, the system operates using high frequency (HF); for “long-distance tracking”, ultra-high frequency (UHF) technology is used.

Due to their different ranges, both systems have found their own areas of application. HF RFID technology is commonly used to track personal workwear and protective garments. The now widely adopted UHF method is used, for example, for laundry and garments from a shared pool. It is also increasingly applied for managing and monitoring the distribution and return of textiles to and from laundry customers.

To what extent can RFID technology enhance transparency in laundry operations and beyond?

Martin Hartwigsen, Business Development Manager at Deister Electronics, Barsinghausen: UHF RFID systems make it possible to track workwear and uniforms from the laundry facility right through to their distribution and return at hospitals, care homes, cleanrooms, food processing plants and other industrial settings. Since each textile item is equipped with a uniquely identifiable transponder, it can be detected either via so-called RFID gates or individual item readers.

In the laundry itself, we recommend placing individual readers at various key points to capture data on the movement of items. Their strategic positioning allows for comprehensive tracking of garments throughout the operation. For example, installing a reader at the sorting chute enables automated goods-in checks, recording the volume of items returned by rental customers.

RFID gates, by contrast, offer a wide reading range and can capture large volumes of laundry in a single pass. This makes them an ideal solution for distributing garments at customer sites. The gates assign the delivered textiles to a specific locker or collection room. Staff members gain access using an ID card or through a turnstile, allowing them to collect their daily laundry requirements.

Thanks to the smooth interaction between transponders, read/write units and the software, all garments issued and returned by authorised personnel are accurately recorded. If a user exceeds their allocated quota, access is blocked or a notification is sent to their team leader. This system significantly improves the management of garment exchange in hygiene-critical environments – and helps reduce the widespread hoarding of workwear that is commonly observed in the healthcare sector.