Efficient Order and Stock Management Workwear Solutions for Factories
If there’s one thing that keeps manufacturing and production facilities running smoothly, it’s orderliness. Every cog, machine, material, and individual must work in harmony, like clockwork, to achieve the desired results.
Workwear – from overalls for production floor workers to lab coats, booties and caps for cleanroom staff – is an essential, yet often overlooked aspect of factory operations. The lack of a uniform management system can impact productivity and increase costs. Implementing an advanced workwear management system allows factory operation managers to streamline order and stock management workwear processes, significantly reducing waste and costs and improving efficiency.
Automating the workwear management process
Although uniforms are not raw materials or components of manufactured products, they’re an essential part of the production process. As such, efficiency in managing them, like all things industrial, begins with automation.
Much like an automated assembly line enables you to speed and control production, a Polytex full cycle automated workwear management solution allows you to systemically gain efficiencies and control at all touch points of the workwear lifecycle. This includes the distribution, return, tracking and control of each workwear item.
Polytex full cycle automated workwear management solution
The efficiency benefits of workwear management solutions ripple from the laundry down the production line, and straight through to the end product.
Order and stock management workwear solutions at work
While there are also significant benefits in terms of staff morale and hygiene, this article focuses on the efficiency front, covering the numerous ways order and stock management workwear solutions increase productivity, saving time and money.
Eliminate hours of labor-intensive tasks
Traditionally, workwear management and laundering processes have been highly time-consuming and labor-intensive. But they don’t have to be. With accurate, automated inventory tracking and monitoring, significant time savings can be achieved across the board.
There’s plenty of time that can be saved in the distribution process – as Unilever Food Factories found after it installed a Polytex workwear management system. The company no longer needs 24-hour-a-day storeroom staff to distribute clothing, freeing up personnel to better channel their efforts to higher-value tasks.
Efficiencies also extend to the laundry process, as an automated system enables you to ensure dirty items are washed on time and in optimally loaded cycles, without a whole lot of sifting and sorting in between. This prevents stockouts while cutting waste.
A case in point is Orbotech, a technology leader with production cleanrooms. By implementing a Polytex system, the company eliminated inefficient, labor-intensive laundry inventory-related manual tasks and achieved its goal of cutting 40 hours of labor per month.
Save time, hassle, and space
Another way an automated workwear solution enhances efficiency is by providing workers with easy access to uniforms. Based on self-service distribution units stocked with workwear items, employees simply need to swipe their ID card or the mobile app at the beginning of each shift – day, night, or on the weekend – to get the exact items they need.
Furthermore, Polytex workwear dispensing units have a large capacity, yet a small footprint. A single unit can be placed in one convenient location where most workers pass through on the way to their shift. Or, as Philips Medical Systems did, multiple dispensing and return units can be placed in several key locations to better serve a larger workforce.
Optimize garment usage
An automated garment management system shifts workwear items from being individually assigned to being part of a shared pool. This reduces the overall inventory required, as the same items are cycled through the system, and used on a per need basis.
David Avisaru, the Housekeeping Manager at the pharmaceutical company Padagis, summarizes this saying: “Polytex is one machine that serves all departments, each according to its own requirements. In the computer, we define the allocation for each employee according to their role… We fill the machine according to the requirements, and then the machine provides the items when the employee swipes their ID card.”
The tracking software enables workwear managers to ensure the units are properly stocked, so the right workwear is always available.
Plus, with the ID card system to access workwear, accountability reduces losses, whether deliberate or inadvertent, such as the common practice of hoarding or home laundering. You can even define usage limits like Unilever did, in which workers cannot take new clean items until the old ones have been returned.
A workwear solution like Polytex simplifies order and stock management, allowing for better control of the distribution and collection of uniforms, as well as of the entire inventory process.
The system generates real-time and historical reports, delivering data and insights for informed decision making. Managers can clearly understand precise consumption patterns and maintain inventory levels accordingly. Besides ensuring you never reach a stockout situation, you can also order just the precise number of items you require, eliminating the need to pad inventory “just in case”.
Using its Polytex system, Orbotech reduced the number of items used per employee by over 30%, enabling it to cut stock levels and the number of item types they manage significantly.
Meet regulatory requirements and provide proof of compliance
Although workwear management automation isn’t required to pass regulatory inspections, it can make adherence to compliance standards easier and more efficient.
Philips, through the Polytex Total Care Manager software, automatically generates accurate reports for submission to the FDA /TÜV, proving its compliance with regulatory standards. Plus, with the workwear hygiene improvements enabled by the Polytex system, Philips is better equipped to meet ISO 7 requirements around minimizing risk of contamination.
Likewise, Padagis submits usage reports automatically generated by the Polytex software as documented proof during the FDA inspection process to show how often employees change uniforms. This saves time and effort, while supporting it in securing accreditation that’s essential to its operations.
What’s more, the Polytex machines were credited with making a strong, positive impression of the company. “When the FDA inspectors visited, they were enthusiastic,” recalls David Avisaru, at Padagis. “In the concluding discussion, the Polytex machine was the first thing they mentioned. It showed them that the factory had invested in meeting standards and protocols.”
Conclusion
On the factory floor, in the cleanroom, or in your research labs, providing hygienic workwear items at all hours is essential to productivity.
Automating the process with a full cycle workwear management solution is key to making that happen. Ultimately, this will reduce your costs and improve efficiency, while having a positive impact on staff along the way.
To learn more about how order and stock management workwear can help boost productivity, contact Polytex today.