Patent Application
20130091725
Industrial and commercial laundering facilities have the capability of processing thousands of garments a day. As a result of this capacity, it may be beneficial to better define process controls to reduce cost and increase efficiency. Garments may naturally absorb ambient moisture present in the local environment. Consequently, it may be a waste of resources and inefficient to dry garments below a threshold moisture content (i.e. the ambient level of moisture). Therefore, it may be beneficial to monitor the moisture content of a garment at one or more points during the laundering process to allow process parameters to be adjusted to reduce cost and increase efficiency.
GRAPH A depicts the energy usage data presented in Table C.
Referring now to the figures,
Garments 12, which may be soiled, may be delivered to the laundering facility by delivery vehicles, which may be delivery trucks. This incoming delivery step is indicated by box 10 in
After the pre-wash sort 20, the garments 12 may be transferred to a washing work station 30, which may comprise washing machines, where the garments 12 are washed. For the purposes of this description, “wash”, “washing” and “washed” may mean traditional laundering, dry cleaning, and any other suitable method or process and “washing machine” may refer to an apparatus for washing or any other suitable device. After being processed through the washing work station 30, the garments 12 are processed through a drying work station 40, during which the garments 12 may be dried using dryers, by passing through a steam tunnel or any other suitable method or device. Once dried, the garments 12 are transferred to an inspection work station 50. At the inspection work station 50, a worker may inspect the garments for damage such as rips, tears, missing buttons and such.
After inspection, each garment 12 is configured for processing and placed on a conveyor. Garments 12 may be configured for processing by being hung on hangers, folded or by undergoing any other suitable preparation. The garments 12 may be delivered as configured for processing or may be subsequently configured for delivery by being hung on hangers, folded or by undergoing any other suitable preparation. In one embodiment, a garment 12 is configured for processing by being hung from a clothes hanger where the hanger is attached to a carrier that interfaces with the conveyor. If the garment 12 is in satisfactory condition, the garment 12 may be transferred to a sorting and storage work station 75. Alternatively, if the garment 12 has sustained some damage and is in need of repair, the garment 12 may be transferred to a repair work station 70. Once the garment 12 has been repaired, the garment 12 may be transferred to the sorting and storage work station 75. Additionally, the garments 12 may be steamed or pressed any time after washing, or not at all, and do not necessarily have to be steamed or pressed prior to sorting.
At the sorting and storage station 75, the garment 12 may be directed to a pre-sort buffer (not shown) determined by the delivery route for the garment 12. The pre-sort buffer may consist of several rails, where each route is temporarily assigned to one or more rails. Once all, or a substantial majority, of the garments 12 for a route are collected on a rail, the garments 12 may be directly conveyed to a sorter (not shown) where they are sorted by delivery sequence within the route. Once sorted, the garments 12 may be automatically and immediately conveyed to storage where they are stored until they are scheduled for loading and delivery 90.
Alternatively, the sorting and storage station 75 may incorporate a multi-destination storage capability (not shown) in lieu of a pre-sort buffer. In this version, the garments 12 may be grouped together in storage based on route, but may be out of sequence. Each garment 12 may be conveyed to a storage rail corresponding to its route. The garments 12 may remain in storage until it is determined that they should be sorted. From storage, the garments 12 may be conveyed to a sorter where they are sorted by delivery sequence within the route. Once sorted, the garments 12 may be conveyed to a staging area (not shown) prior to being transferred to loading and delivery 90, may be loaded for delivery, or may be conveyed back into storage and loaded for delivery at a later time.
Each garment 12 may include a permanent or temporary unique identifier (not shown), such as an alphanumeric code, which may be unique to each garment or a class of garments. The identifier may be manually readable by workers or may be encoded in a machine readable format, such as a bar code, radio frequency (RF) chip, and any other suitable method or device. The identifier may allow users to track the progress of a particular garment or class of garments through the process or be used to collect various other types of data regarding a particular garment, a specific class of garments, certain steps of the process, the process as a whole or any other suitable category of information.
Embodiments of the improved method of garment processing of the present invention include a method of laundering, drying and sorting garments that comprises measurement of the moisture content of at least one garment 12 at one or more stages of the process. The moisture content may be observed and recorded. The moisture content may be measured using a moisture meter or any other suitable device. In one embodiment, the moisture content may be measured using a device similar to the BD-2100 Moisture Meter device manufactured by the Delmhorst Instrument Company (www.delmhorst.com), an example of which is shown in
In one embodiment of the inventive method, shown in
Garments may naturally absorb ambient moisture present in the local environment. Consequently, it may be inefficient and a waste of resources to dry garments below a threshold moisture content (i.e. the ambient humidity). For example, if a garment undergoes the drying process and has a moisture content of 1% after drying, once the garment is removed from the dryer and exposed to the environment (such as, for example while awaiting transfer to the next station, while undergoing repair, while being kept in storage, etc.) the garment may begin absorbing ambient moisture. As a result, after drying, the moisture content of the garment may have increased to equal the ambient humidity. Therefore, efficiency may be gained and resources may be saved if the parameters of the process are set such that the garment is only dried sufficiently to reduce the moisture content of the garment to a level that is approximately equal to the humidity.
In the embodiment of the present invention shown in
Alternatively, in addition to, or instead of, adjusting parameters for garments 112 that undergo the process in the future, parameters for steps not yet completed by the garment 112 presently being measured may be adjusted to achieve the desired moisture content in the current load of garments. For instance, if the moisture content is measured after washing 130 and prior to drying 140, the temperature at which the garments 112 are dried in the drying step 140 may be adjusted to achieve a moisture content in the current load of garments 112 substantially equal to the threshold amount. One or more adjustments to the process may be made, including but not limited to adjusting the drying time for the garments 112, changing the temperature at which the garments 112 are dried, adjusting the speed of the washing machines, adjusting the speed of the conveyor transporting the garments 112, or any other suitable modifications to the process.
In one embodiment of the present invention, as a result of monitoring the moisture content of one or more garments after the drying process, the drying time for the garments may be decreased and the temperature at which the garments are dried may be increased. The following two Tables A and B provide sample data and calculations that demonstrate the potential time and financial savings resulting from these adjustments to the process parameters in a sample laundering facility.
The data and calculations shown in Tables A and B represent a comparison between the amount of natural gas typically used during the drying process and the amount of natural gas used after making the adjustments. In the sample shown, the drying equipment generally requires one thousand cubic feet of natural gas (1 mcf) for every hour of operation (i.e. “MCF rate”). Consequently, if the hours of operation required are reduced, then less natural gas may be required, which may result in financial savings for the user. Obviously, the cost per hour of MCF and estimated savings are estimates and may vary depending on actual costs.
Table C and Graph A further illustrate potential reductions in energy usage resulting from making adjustments to the process parameters in response to the monitoring of the moisture content of the garments at some point during the process. Table A includes the amount of energy used each work day over a seven week time period at a sample laundering plant where an embodiment of the inventive method was utilized.
Graph A depicts the energy usage data shown in Table C. In the sample depicted in Graph A, the energy usage clearly trends downward as a result of implementation of an embodiment of the inventive method. In fact, in this particular sample, implementing an embodiment of the inventive method resulted in a roughly 62% reduction in energy usage, based on the average usage in Week 7 and the highest average energy usage in Week 2. As discussed above, energy may be saved by adjusting the parameters of the laundering, drying and sorting process in order to produce garments that are not over-dried and have a moisture content approximately equal to or above the ambient humidity after drying. The energy savings may result in a more efficient process and significant financial savings.
While the present invention has been illustrated by description of several embodiments and while the illustrative embodiments have been described in considerable detail, it is not the intention of the applicant to restrict or in any way limit the scope of the appended claims to such detail. Additional advantages and modifications may readily appear to those skilled in the art.
This is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/344,298 filed on Dec. 26, 2008, which in turn claimed priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/016,961 filed Dec. 27, 2007 and each of these prior applications is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 12344298 | Dec 2008 | US |
| Child | 13709160 | US |
