Case Study

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel saves time, costs, and stops uniform loss with garment dispensing units

The Ritz-Carlton, saves time and costs, stops uniform loss, with Polytex Automated Workwear Management

Background

The Ritz-Carlton, is a luxury hotel located in a picturesque marina, five minutes’ walk from the Mediterranean Sea. Opened in 2013, it serves an international clientele of business and leisure travelers with elegance and style. As a busy, high-end hotel, it’s important to The Ritz-Carlton, that its 280 workers always have impeccable uniforms available. In the past, the hotel was sending soiled workwear to the internal laundry, where it was washed, hung to dry, then manually redistributed to employees. The process was time consuming for everyone. The hotel wanted to save workers’ time and reduce the need to have laundry workers onsite 24/7. In addition, uniforms constantly went missing and the hotel’s Purchasing Manager wanted to be able to track and gain control over inventory.

With its Polytex solution, The Ritz Carlton, Herzliya has achieved its goals of reducing manual labor demands and significantly cutting item replacement costs.

  1. Substantial cost savings
  2. Accurate inventory management
  3. Reduced manual labor
  4. Uniforms available 24/7
  5. More satisfied employees

Customer Testimonials

We were constantly chasing lost items and needed a solution. As soon as we saw Polytex, we knew it was the right decision for us.

Ronit Sinai

Purchasing Manager, The Ritz-Carlton

Customer Needs

Although The Ritz-Carlton needed an automated solution to streamline laundry personnel hours, its main goal was to solve the issue of missing items.

Requirements

  • Gain control over inventory: Accurate inventory management was needed to track items issued to permanent staff and temporary workers, and reduce expenditure on missing workwear.
  • Reduce manual labor: The hotel wanted to eliminate dependency on 24/7 manual labor for uniform distribution.
  • Provide 24/7 access to uniforms: Clean items needed to be available to regular staff as well as temporary workers at the beginning of each shift, in the right color, style, and size.
  • Ensure ease-of-use: As a new way of operating, the solution had to be simple to use to ensure staff would adopt it.

The Solution

In August 2022, Polytex’s garment dispensing units, comprising of two D300 dispensing units and one R110 return unit were installed, along with the Total Care Manager cloud-based software.

  • Comprehensive workwear tracking: Workwear consumption, usage trends, and inventory levels can be tracked via a simple and easy-to-use web-based application.
  • Automated garment dispensing process: Employees simply swipe their ID card and automatically receive the right uniform, eliminating the need for round-the-clock staff to handle uniform distribution.
  • Intuitive usage: Polytex units are easy to use, with no learning curve involved for employees.

Results

With the Polytex team providing support throughout each stage, the garment dispensing solution was deployed quickly and adopted with ease. From the start, the hotel saw significant cost savings.

Reduced workwear costs
Because uniform tracking creates accountability, all personnel return their items promptly, eliminating uniform losses. With required items always, employees no longer want to hoard workwear. This saves the hotel significantly on lost items costs.
Lower labor costs
The hotel no longer needs to dedicate staff to be always available for uniform distribution.
Full inventory control
Able to closely track all usage parameters, the hotel has gained control over inventory. This has increased efficiency, saving the hotel both time and money.
24/7 workwear availability
The automated garment dispensing units work around the clock, regardless of shift start times, weekends, or holidays. Now clean uniforms, in the right size and style, are always available whenever hotel staff and temporary workers need them.
Increased employee satisfaction
Knowing clean uniforms will always be available, in minutes, improves employee satisfaction, giving them a more pleasant and efficient start to their workday.