Editor’s Note: This article was published in Hospitality News Philippines’ June 10, 2015 issue with the title, “Things to remember when outsourcing your hotel’s laundry.” Get the latest issue by subscribing: divine@hospitalitynews.ph
Commercial and on-premise laundries, housekeeping, and foodservice are the active players that keep the excellent standards of hotels, motels, resorts, and dining facilities. Their roles are important in not only maintaining quality standards but also increasing sales.
One of the trends sweeping across the sanitation business is the outsourcing of laundry. The typical service provider is the linen laundry services if the on-premise laundry is not available. The outside linen services is called commercial laundry, whose machines are bigger and entirely different from the laundry shops. They pick up and deliver the laundry items at approved schedule.
Laundry services are measured by prompt delivery, whiteness appearance, and linen life extension. Linen laundry service provider and the institutional establishments are now aware that HACCP practices mandate, among others, that laundry linen must be organism free, no wrinkles, no lints, no foul odor, and stain free.
The following criteria must be taken care of by an outsourced laundry service provider. These criteria can also be stated as the qualities needed:
1. Timeliness – Prompt delivery as committed
2. Completeness – All deliveries are complete to the letter. All are owned by the particular customer, not its competitor
3. Whiteness – White items must be immaculately white, not gray or yellowing. There should be no stains, and the items must not be creased, crumpled, or wrinkled.
Commercial laundry or laundry service provider has its few pros and cons too. One obvious advantage is that the hotel will not invest in laundry machines or hire people to operate them. On the other hand, outsourced laundry service can fail to deliver on time and lose and damage your linen. In which case, the service provided must agree to pay a penalty if it fails to deliver on time, pay losses at once, and replace and pay damaged items.
Some hotels still prefer on-premise laundry, which will deliver clean linens anytime. Of course, the on-premise laundry should still deliver the quality laundry finish needed by the management.
Regardless of which is chosen, the premise – Is it clean? – has to be answered by both the outsourced and the on-premise laundry. Ask yourself: Is it clean? Does it smell clean? Does it feel clean?
