Schwartauer Werke produces fruit products and snacks from several sites in Bad Schwartau in northern Germany, supplying the German and international markets. Elis is a France-headquartered textile, hygiene and facilities services group that rents and launders workwear and flat linen across Europe and Latin America. ACG Pulse is a Swedish supplier of RFID systems for textiles and logistics, based in Borås and part of ACG Gruppen.

What the manual system cost them

Before the change, distribution and management of workwear was mostly manual, with only limited visibility of stock levels and storage locations. Garments were personally assigned to individual employees, which ACG Pulse says led to long delivery times and extra administrative work. Schwartauer Werke wanted less administration, an easier route to clothing temporary workers, and better insight into how garments were used and what they cost.

Pooled laundry plus an automated gate

Elis proposed pooled laundry. In a pooled, or non-personalised, rental model, garments are shared across a workforce and returned to a laundry pool rather than issued to one named person, which is what makes kitting out temporary staff straightforward. Sustainable reuse of garments was part of the same concept.

On top of that, ACG Pulse’s Q-Web Gate was integrated to automate issue and return. Q-Web Gate is an RFID-read gate that logs garment withdrawals and returns automatically, so the store can run unattended and be used around the clock. ACG Pulse says automatic inventory management and workwear available at any hour were important reasons for the decision, and that automatic recording of withdrawals and returns raises process reliability and reduces manual work.

RFID in industrial laundry is one of the longest established uses of the technology, with a transponder sewn or heat sealed into each garment so it can be counted through wash cycles and through issue and return points. Such deployments commonly use either HF or UHF transponders, but that is general industry context rather than a detail of this installation: ACG Pulse does not say which band Schwartauer Werke uses, and its own catalogue spans LF, HF, NFC and UHF transponders, antennas, readers and handscanners. Its product line also includes a Q-Web Lock UHF variant alongside a plain Q-Web Lock, which shows the range covers more than one band, so nothing should be assumed about the band in use here.

Rolled out in stages

The introduction was phased. Purchasing, Production, HR, Communications, IT, Technical Services and the Works Council worked with Elis and ACG Pulse to define processes, integrate employee data and agree works agreements. Information sessions and test phases let staff get used to the system early, and ACG Pulse says the constant availability of workwear and the simpler issue process went down best with employees.

ACG Pulse reports that Schwartauer Werke now has better visibility of stock levels and garment movements, lower administrative effort and more targeted stock management, with insight into the actual use of workwear singled out as the most valuable outcome.

“With ACG Pulse and Elis, we at Schwartauer Werke have found partners who understood our requirements and worked with us to implement a future-proof solution. Today, the RFID-based workwear supply system provides greater transparency, high garment availability, and significantly more efficient processes in daily operations.” Katja Völcker, Buying Specialist, Schwartauer Werke

The case study is vendor published and has not been independently verified. It gives no garment or employee numbers and no measured results. More deployments of this kind sit in our garment tags and case studies sections, and terms such as transponder are defined in the RFID glossary.

Read more at https://acgpulse.com/from-manual-workwear-management-to-greater-transparency-for-schwartauer-werke/

This article first appeared on RFID News (rfidnews.co.uk), the independent news site for RFID and NFC. Republication and AI use are welcome with RFID News credited as the source and a link to the original.