Last month, I began my coverage of new equipment at the Clean Show. It was difficult to absorb it all. I mentioned the new shirt units from Sankosha and Unipress. But there was much more. Hi-Steam introduced a new unit. So did PONY. Unipress completely revamped their steam cabinet. It is 7 inches taller, and the control panel is on the side of the unit. It would be out of reach if it remained on top. There are steam cabinets from Itsumi and a company new to the industry, Presso. You can see them both, of course, on my Podcast at TALK Dryclean & Laundry USA.
Let’s talk about a company that made it’s first appearance at Clean; MACPI. They had a large booth with four pieces of equipment unlike anything you’ve seen. You’ve seen steam tunnels, but theirs is quite different. The steam, for one thing, is injected in a new way, thereby saturating the garment – saturating isn’t the right word – the garment gets steam evenly distributed and then thoroughly dried. I was very impressed with the very thick insulation on the cabinet walls. I think that it is about six inches thick!
MACPI also offers a four-station pants press. It can press 300 no-crease pants per hour with one operator. If you need a crease, robotic arms move the pants to another machine that will crease 150 pants per hour with one presser. That’s a bit of a complicated calculation but that translates into a PPH (Pieces Pressed per Hour) of between 300 PPH (if all pants are no crease) and 100 PPH (if all pants are creased). Regardless, mindboggling reduction in labor. As if that wasn’t enough, the same company offers a quad shirt press – four bucks, four shirts at once – robotic hanger insertion and unloading.
You gotta see this. Luckily, you can see all the videos that I took in Orlando by subscribing to my Podcast.
A few companies offer steam cabinets. They are an old idea. My father’s coin-laundry had coin-operated version that were a companion product to the long defunct coin-operated perc self-service drycleaning machines (yes. They really had those). With the popularity of tunnels, cabinets have made a new resurgence. Sankosha, Presso, Unipress and Itsumi had something to show.
Donald Desrosiers
Don Desrosiers has been in the laundry and drycleaning industry for over 30 years. As a management consultant, work-flow systems engineer and efficiency expert, he has created the highly acclaimed Tailwind Shirt System, the Tailwind System for Drycleaning and Firestorm for Restoration. He owns and operates Tailwind Systems, a management consulting and work-flow engineering firm. Desrosiers is a monthly columnist for The National Clothesline, Korean Cleaners Monthly, The Golomb Group Newsletter and Australia's The National Drycleaner and Launderer. He is the 2001 winner of IFI's Commitment to Professionalism Award. He has a website at www.tailwindsystems.com and can be reached at tailwindsystems@charter.net or my telephone at 508.965.3163
