After being a part of this industry for over 30 years, I’d like to take a look past day-to-day operations to offer a forecast for our industry within the next 20 years.

Laundry Management: Large organizations that support laundry operations, government, institutional, hospitality, and linen rental must escalate the training of personnel that are responsible for production and management in order to be competitive in the next 20 years. Laundry managers who are very competent, experienced and well educated by the industry are starting to become a thing of the past.

Web Based Linen Management and Laundry Production Programs supported by many textile companies and applicable consultants should be the norm in each highly productive laundry plant.

Equipment: The use of steam heated flatwork ironers will soon become a thing of the past as these systems that require expensive boiler operations and operators will be replaced by highly efficient self contained gas and or oil fired systems. The use of steam may become a thing of the past in laundry operations.

While the basics of automation have been here for several years, mostly supported by Continuous Batch Tunnel Washers, I believe that methods of extraction will change the way we wash and finish textiles. While I would like to forecast drastic improvements in soiled sorting and conveyance, to date nothing spectacular has caught my attention.