Dealing with soils… Got the okay…

Dealing with soils…All of them

Normally the soils we deal with are principally organic in nature. And because that’s the case, the solution to its removal is found in detergents that contain both a source of alkalinity and a surfactant that allows the water both are dissolved in to penetrate the soils. Of course there’s also a sequestrant to deal with the hardness in that water.

But generally it’s pretty straightforward stuff. Ah but step into the laundry and the simplicity ends. Suddenly we’re looking at a combination of them not found elsewhere. And while the level of organic food soils in that on-premise operation is minimal, the array of others is anything but.

We have to deal with body oils if it’s a health care facility, spa or gym. For school athletic departments there’s predominately particulate soils and even grass stains. And with lodging and resort customers who have pools, there’s the challenge of suntan lotion. Then come the really interesting ones like makeup and even shoe polish in those lodging accounts.

In healthcare facilities we see medicine stains that can be anything but straightforward to remove. And finally come the long term care facilities where we see incontinence and its aftermath.

For sure the wash isle is maybe the place where we really get to test our professional abilities. The degree to which we’re prepared to deliver results there may be the only real limitation to making that sector one of our territories’ most profitable and reliable business segments.

Got the okay…Now what?

So we got the green light to take a look at the wash isle to see if we might find a need that’s going to be of real interest to the manager. So what’s the pecking order of where we need to look first, second and maybe even third in order to capitalize on that valuable opening?

The purpose of any on-premise laundry is to generate linen and terry that’s bright, white and clean smelling. So first up we need to look at the shelf stock to see if in fact it is. Is the work on those shelves uniform in appearance? If it isn’t there’s an opening because that variation says there’s a lot of variability in the operation.

Or is it predominantly grey denoting unremoved soil or mineral scale buildup? If that’s the case, either the water levels are too low or perhaps the detergent being used isn’t up to the job. If you see yellow fabrics that can point to inadequate rinsing that’s leaving residual detergent in the fabric. Or maybe so much detergent is being injected that it simply can’t be rinsed out by normal cycles. Do the towels absorb water readily? If not, that might indicate excessive softener use.

Find one of those and you may not have to go any further than those shelves. If just one of those is sufficiently present, that manager might be open to a presentation of how you’ll fix that problem.

Next up: What’s next after the stock?