No rejects…A hard life…

No rejects…No problem

While on the face of it, constructing a pitch for the laundry with a really big pile of rejected linens might seem easier than approaching one with very little or no rejects, that’s not really true. The trick is in understanding why that low reject rate is occurring, and then gaining the understanding of the prospect that they have a cost problem.

Of course hampers that are full of unusable fabrics is a more tangible matter that we can point to and probably offer an immediate solution.  And while the high reject operation is probably an easier target to approach, the likelihood is that we’ll be hard pressed to deliver them any savings.

In fact we might have to increase their chemical costs and lower their production rate to solve the reject issue. But in the case of an account with essentially zero rejects, we might very well be positioned to propose some major league cost reductions and efficiency gains.

Of course it has to begin with a good look at the operation to access the level of overkill in the design of the wash formulas, the chemical usage, or (likely) both. As a result of that dual likelihood you might be positioned to offer them really significant increases in the operation’s throughput, as well as some pretty impressive supply cost savings while operating near that 2.5% reject target.

Next up: Some thoughts on reducing rejects.

A hard life…With a solution

With much of the country either operating in a drought condition or just a serious rain deficit, we can expect to see (if we haven’t already) that the incoming hard water entering that softener has gotten a lot worse. It’s a normal outcome of lessened ground water runoff (that’s essentially pure H2O) that normally mixes with the aquifer water and moderates its’ hardness levels.

But with little rainfall and essentially zero runoff that situation which operates for most of the year is pretty much nonexistent in late summer. The difference this year is that it’s barely summer and it’s already operating as though it was late August.

What this means is that the softened water you were washing with last month is likely a lot less soft. What we can do to offset that situation is to moderately increase the concentration of the detergent in that wash tank to provide additional hardness control.

If we don’t the likelihood is that we’ll soon hear complaints of hazy glassware. And if we don’t address it quickly that complaint may be followed by more serious concerns over stained tableware resulting from the scale buildup that’s providing a porous surface for remnants of the soil to cling.