By Kevin Marois

Wow. This was a fantastic Show! Kudos to the organizers. The buses were on time. Registration was quick. The aisles were wide and even when they were filled with people, it wasn’t difficult to get around. They even had people to direct you to the right bus and the right room for your educational session. We were very glad that we were there.

Plenty to learn

There were three of us from our office and we attended about 12 of the Educational sessions. Here are some random comments from the various seminars:

• Don’t hire multiple people from the same family. If you have to fire someone it will be awkward but it could also leave a big hole when the rest of the family quits.
• Don’t take too long to make changes
• Hire professional (trades) people. Do not get favours from people you know. They won’t do a professional job and they won’t work to the schedule that you need.
• I held a cotton boll in my hand and learned the difference between carded and combed cotton.
• If staff aren’t on the same page as management, they are costing you money.
• Make training videos on good work habits, not just on how not to get injured.
• You must be the face of your business
• People don’t want to do business with a business, they want to do business with a person.

One thing I noticed this time was that people were more dressed up. There were lots of suits and dresses. Some booths had their staff in logoed shirts. It was easy to see who was on their team. The award for the Best Dressed booth at the Show goes to Kannegiesser. They were all in matching custom tailored suits. They were there to do business and they looked like it.

Here are a few things I saw at the Show. There were over 300 booths so I am barely scratching the surface. I did see lots of robots. Robots folding towels, packing bags, loading conveyors and even removing stains. My apologies to the folks doing industrial laundry—I didn’t spend much time in those booths. There was a lot of huge equipment for those laundries. (See Becca’s Daily Diary for the Clean Show for more on those booths.)

Booth Highlights

Mountain Electronics repairs circuit boards for laundry equipment. They fix circuit boards, card readers and even inverters. They will repair your board or they may be able to supply you with a repaired replacement board. https://mountainelectronics.com/

Yamamoto has a combination washer/dryer for coin use. Cycle time is about an hour. Load the machine and forget about it for a while. Royal carts has a bumper for carts that will protect your walls. Forenta was showing their unattended kiosk and their assembly conveyor. Those are simple and well worth looking at.

There was a silver lining to this Show. At least a lining of silver ions. SilvaClean injects silver ions in the last rinse of a wash cycle and deposits those ions on the fabric. Those ions kill pathogens on contact. https://www.appliedsilver.com/

Sankosha has upgraded their Press Free Finisher. They have added inverters for the fan and the conveyor. They have a new style screw conveyor that feeds into the conveyor. They have also had the upgraded DF-250 Form Finisher with a larger blower motor.

Unipress introduced their Cyclone Classic shirt unit. It has a simpler design with less moving parts. It is easy to load and the open frame gives for easier access for repairs. It has simple light weight arms and easier to change padding.

Kreussler was showing the Aquabatch made by Wientjens. https://www.wientjens.com/ It reduces water consumption and saves heat energy. It could reduce water consumption by 50% and save energy was well.

One of the most surprising displays was a robotic stain removal board made by Presso. (https://getpresso.com/) You input the type of stain or enter unknown. It automatically selects what spotting agent to use and sprays a little on the fabric. The machine pauses to allow you to tamp the fabric. Then it automatically steams out the stain and blows it dry with air. When it is finished, it asks if the stain is gone, lighter or not changed at all. Based on your answer, it may repeat the process or tell you it can’t do anything more.

Experienced spotters scoffed at the machine and said they could do much better. I am sure they could because they have years of training. But for those who have never removed a stain, this would be a leap forward. The ability to offer a service they have never dared to offer. We need to remember, this is just a first model. The next one will be even better and the one after that will probably be as good as the spotter in most plants.

One other interesting comment was that the Convention Center was cash free. They only accepted cards. Some of the coin laundries have made that switch. How long until dry cleaners follow suit?

You can never learn enough

If you weren’t at the Show, you better hope your competition wasn’t there. The next Clean Show is in Las Vegas, July 15-18, 2027. Start planning now.

If you are saying, “I can’t afford to go to a Clean Show,” I have good news. We are having a training seminar at my office September 19 and 20. Email Paula at imi@telus.net and she will send you the info. It is a free seminar that we put on to help our customers. And you are invited!

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