Industrial laundry machinery with advanced performance and maximum energy efficiency
Today, in our series of interviews, we will talk to David Gomar, manager of Acynova, our Domus Delegation in the Valencian Community and Murcia.
We would like him to tell us how he started his collaboration with the brand. At the same time, we talk about industrial laundry, the new Domus models and their advanced energy efficiency, connectivity and productivity features.
Nobody better than him can tell us how an industrial laundry works, the processes that take place in it, and the best equipment to meet the needs of today’s market, which is increasingly demanding of manufacturers.
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Good morning. To put the users in context, Mr Gomar, tell us a bit about the history of your company, Acynova, and how this collaboration and partnership with a brand like Domus came about.
First of all, I would like to say that, although Acynova is a recent brand, we have over thirty years’ experience in the laundry sector.
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Do you specialise in industrial laundry, and is it your main line of business? Is this the case?
We mainly have two or three lines of business; on the one hand, industrial laundries; secondly, in terms of customer volume, retirement homes; and finally, we have the self-service sector and hotels.
We are best positioned in the industrial laundry sector. Still, we also have a strong presence in the healthcare sector in the Valencian Community.
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Tell us a little about how an industrial laundry works, as well as the processes and the most critical factors you would like to highlight. How is it different from other types of laundries?
Managers of industrial laundries start from necessity. They know that they must have a large fleet of vehicles to collect all the dirty linen from their customers and bring it to the laundry.
Inside the laundry, they have to sort and separate it into different types of laundry or dirtiness to carry out various washing programmes.
For example, towels and bathrobes have traceability and a process that would go from the washing machine to the dryer and from the tumble dryer to folding. However, flatwork, bedsheets, tablecloths, napkins and so on are only washed, not dried. From washing, they go directly to ironing in a flatwork ironer, which dries them at the same time as they are ironed.
On the other hand, you can have mechanical means to fold it. Everything depends on the size of the laundry and what equipment you have, without forgetting the daily volume of work, something that should always be taken into account.
All industrial laundries, depending on size or machinery, always start with double shifts. When they can no longer cope with this system, they increase their number of machines. It is a sector that is on a shoestring budget and has very tight margins, and competition is very tough.
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From a commercial and technical point of view, what factors directly impact the choice of industrial laundry machinery?
I always focus on the number of kilos that each laundry has to process and how many hours they have for doing it to see how large a machine is required. It is not the same to process 2000 kg of clothes in one shift, in half a shift or two shifts.
What I would like to emphasise is that small and medium-sized industrial laundries have to have different sizes of washing machines because they have customers of all sizes, so it is excellent for them to be able to work with various capacities, ranging from 11 to 45 kg, to be able to wash and work per customer.
Yes, in larger laundries, they go directly to washing machines with a minimum capacity of 45 or 60 kg, or even 100 kg, because they have much larger customers. However, it is also important to note that this depends very much on the size of the premises and the square metres available.
In essence, the size and characteristics of the machines should always be chosen according to the actual needs of each laundry but bearing in mind that these may increase over time.
It is vital to talk to the customer and detect the type to choose the most suitable machinery and not fall short in terms of production. You always have to leave a margin of growth to the customer. So we always calculate, more or less, 20%.
On the other hand, it is often not what they need but what they can afford.
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Is it challenging to find the right balance between budget, a good level of productivity and the best possible process quality?
Undoubtedly the answer is yes. And often, it is not up to us either, since the conditions and the particularities of the space do not allow us to make the best proposal. The customer may not have sufficient power, either gas or electricity, and has been waiting for six months for an increase in power to no avail.
This process is a puzzle at the end of the day until you have all the pieces closed … For example, we have a customer with whom we have been waiting for more than a year to be able to put an extra dryer in his laundry, but the gas company that the industrial estate has does not give him any more gas; so, until this is solved, we cannot increase his machinery. So, how do you make up for it? Working overtime and doubling shifts. But this is only a quick fix. As you can see, there are times when you have other complexities.
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I suppose that controlling the traceability of each cycle to the millimetre, both washing and drying and ironing, is crucial for an industrial laundry. What role is the TOUCH II playing in this?
The new TOUCH II is a differential value of the brand and has brought a long list of advantages and strengths to all our equipment. We already started with the TOUCH I, a big hit – the first touchscreen in the industrial laundry market. You have to think that there is a lot of moisture and corrosive chemicals in an industrial laundry, two factors that we thought would affect the operability of a touchscreen, but this has not been the case.
The truth is that they have proved to be very hard, very comfortable and very easy to use. On top of that, the TOUCH II has improved on the TOUCH I, and the customer is very grateful for all this.
It is straightforward to configure and gives you all the necessary information: washes, kilos, breakdowns, processes, water, temperatures …, it really is a computer, it is as if you had a tablet inside the washing machine or dryer.
The great advantage is that the customer who has touched a Domus screen already knows how to operate any Domus machine, with all the benefits that this entails. All menus work in the same way and are configured in the same way.
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And we should not forget to talk about the connectivity of the machines and the new Domus Connect system. What advantages will this new Internet of Things-based system provide in an industrial laundry?
Whenever we launch a new system like this, the brand takes care of all the training courses, and now we are starting with them, both for the commercial and the technical part. Technicians will evidently have much more information, interact remotely with machines, and troubleshoot faults much more efficiently. As a result, we will save time and money, both the customer and ourselves.
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To conclude, why choose Domus for an industrial laundry?
In the past, we did not have such a strong presence in large laundries, and Domus has long been committed to innovation and development in the industrial laundry sector. All this without copying, and we are ahead in terms of machinery, features, durability, energy savings …
Our washing machines are faster, our dryers consume less energy, nowadays, regardless of the needs of each laundry, we have solutions for everything and working in this way is an absolute pleasure, and this is the best guarantee for each of our customers.
I think that is all from our side. It has been gratifying to talk to you about industrial laundry. It only remains for us to remind you that if you would like to contact the sales department of Acynova, just call us on 677 345 405 or send us an email at info@acynova.com. You can also take a few seconds to fill out this form, and they will contact you right away. It’s as simple as that!
