In-House Items are Picked Up

Introduction

There are many ways in which both soiled and clean linen is moved within a hotel property. All departments that use linen must be familiar with both the collection and delivery systems that exist so that the laundry can wash all soiled linen in a timely manner and return it for use back to the relevant departments so that there are never any shortages.

There are many methods of handling linen and this will be influenced by several factors:

• The size of the hotel

• The layout of the hotel

• The logistics within the property

• The number of rooms and bathrooms

• The star rating

• How often linen is changed

• The amount of linen storage cupboards throughout the property

• The number of par levels

• The operating hours of the laundry

• Whether or not the hotel has a separate linen room or uniform room or both

• The quantities and types of linen used

• The number of restaurants and their operating hours

• Whether there is a gym, hairdresser, spa, swimming pool or massage rooms

• Whether or not the hotel operates 24 hours a day (as in a casino property)

• Whether there is a linen chute from the floors directly to the laundry.

Internal Transportation

• Where the laundry is on-site at the hotel (OPL), transportation of linen to the laundry may be done by laundry, housekeeping or restaurant staff.

• Soiled linen may be delivered directly to the laundry via a chute from the guest floors. The room attendants will strip the linen from the rooms and then place the soiled linen down the chute. This method does save time and ensures that the laundry has a consistent flow of soiled goods at all times.

• In other hotels the linen may have to be collected manually from each floor and packaged into trolleys or bags and then transported to the laundry via lifts and corridors.

• In widespread hotels as on some island resorts, transport of linen may be by way of a buggy to which trolleys are attached. This circulates across the property, collecting and delivering linen to the maids’ stations several times throughout the day

• Restaurant staff may also deliver soiled table linen directly to the laundry in trolleys and bags.

• In some hotels there may also be a separate linen room from where all soiled linen is received and counted and from where clean linen is issued. In this case all clean linen is returned to this location from the laundry for re-issuing of the same quantities back to the guest floors and restaurants.

Methods of Managing Linen – Stock

There are essentially three different methods of managing linen stock when there is an on-site laundry:

a) 1 for 1

b) Top up system

c) Requisitioning system

1 for 1

• Each floor or restaurant is issued with an agreed par level of linen. With this system, all items are exchanged clean for dirty. e.g. If the restaurant uses 200 napkins then 200 clean napkins will be returned

• In some hotels, for example, guest room floor pantries are set with correct par levels for that particular floor. As room attendants remove soiled linen from each room, they count the linen. These quantities are recorded on their work sheet next to each room number

• At the end of the day, the quantities are totaled and checked by the Housekeeping supervisor and sent to the linen room or laundry for replacement in exact quantities onto these floors

Example: If the room attendants on the 43^rd floor use:

• 46 Queen sheets

• 48 pillow cases

• 36 bath towels

• 29 hand towels

• 52 face washers

• 24 bathmats

• 12 bathrobes.

Then this will be the amount that is replaced in to the floor pantry on the 43rd floor.

Top up system

• This is a system where no par levels are established so stock levels are just "topped up" daily

• This may lead to overstocking of items and uncontrolled costs. It may also lead to extreme shortages of linen because there is essentially little or no control over the linen. One restaurant may be short of linen whilst others may have a stockpile. Similarly one guest floor may have excess of one item such as bath towels where another floor has none.

Example:

Room attendants use linen and rely on laundry or housekeeping staff to replenish the stock.

Requisitioning system

This is a system where the hotel keeps a stock of linen items in the linen room. Each restaurant will requisition only what they need on www.eventlinen.com.au on a daily basis. If the hotel does not have the required stock, they may need to arrange temporary hire of some items from an outside company.