(9) Traditional Laundry Service Vs Modern Laundry Service

For me, the laundry industry is become popular among people who works and students. This types of business are growing from traditional to modern process. Working people usually prefer to use (1) Premium Laundry Service especially for Dry Cleaning or (2) Self Service Laundry (Coins) for Normal Wash especially to use the Dryer. While student will prefer to use the Self Service Laundry because it is easy to handle and affordable for them rather than Premium Laundry Services.

Traditional Laundry Services

The Traditional Laundry Services was first done in watercourses, letting the water carry away the materials which could cause stains and smells. Laundry is still done this way in some less industrialized areas and rural regions. Agitation helps remove the dirt, so the laundry is often rubbed, twisted, or slapped against flat rocks. Wooden bats or clubs could be used to help with beating the dirt out. These were often called washing beetles or bats and could be used by the waterside on a rock (a beetling-stone), on a block (battling-block), or on a board. They were once common across Europe and were also used by settlers in North America. Similar techniques have also been identified in Japan.

Laundry In The River

When no watercourses were available, laundry was done in water-tight vats or vessels. Sometimes large metal cauldrons were filled with fresh water and heated over a fire; boiling water was even more effective than cold in removing dirt. Wooden or stone scrubbing surfaces set up near a water supply or portable washboards, including factory-made corrugated metal ones, gradually replaced rocks as a surface for loosening soil.

Before the advent of the washing machine, apart from watercourses, laundry was also done in communal or public wash houses (also called wash-houses or wash houses), especially in rural areas in Europe or the Mediterranean Basin. Water was channeled from a river or spring and fed into a building or outbuilding built specifically for laundry purposes and often containing two basins - one for washing and the other for rinsing - through which the water was constantly flowing, as well as a stone lip inclined towards the water against which the washers could beat the clothes. Such facilities were much more comfortable than washing in a watercourse because the launderers could work standing up instead of on their knees, and were protected from inclement weather by walls (often) and a roof (with some exceptions). Also, they didn't have to go far, as the facilities were usually at hand in the village or at the edge of a town. These facilities were public and available to all families, and usually used by the entire village.

Wash Houses

Wash Houses In Italy

Wash House In Portugal

The Industrial Revolution completely transformed laundry technology. The mangle (wringer US) was developed in the 19th century - two long rollers in a frame and a crank to revolve them. A laundry-worker took sopping wet clothing and cranked it through the mangle, compressing the cloth and expelling the excess water. The mangle was much quicker than hand twisting. It was a variation on the box mangle used primarily for pressing and smoothing cloth.

Meanwhile, 19th century inventors further mechanized the laundry process with various hand-operated washing machines. Most involved turning a handle to move paddles inside a tub. Then some early 20th century machines used an electrically powered agitator to replace tedious hand rubbing against a washboard. Many of these were simply a tub on legs, with a hand-operated mangle on top. Later the mangle too was electrically powered, then replaced by a perforated double tub, which spun out the excess water in a spin cycle. Laundry drying was also mechanized, with clothes dryers. Dryers were also spinning perforated tubs, but they blew heated air rather than water.

Modern Laundry Services

Nowadays, the Modern Laundry Services include washing (usually with water containing detergents or other chemicals), agitation, rinsing, drying and pressing (ironing). The washing will often be done at a temperature above room temperature to increase the activities of any chemicals used and the solubility of stains, and high temperatures kill micro-organisms that may be present on the fabric. Modern washing machines typically use synthetic powdered or liquid laundry detergent in place of more traditional soap. The Dry Cleaning Service also provided as mentioned in Post 8 before. 

Premium Laundry Services

In Modern Laundry Services usually the owner used new technology and system to operate their business smoothly. One of example Premium Laundry Services that use latest technology is service provide by Laundry Locker (https://laundrylocker.com), whereby the customers need to signing up for an account on their website. Then, when the customers want to do laundry, or have items that need to be dry-cleaned, they just truck their load down to a Laundry Locker location. The company have six kiosks like the one on Haight Street (five in San Francisco, one in Berkeley), but they also have standalone lockers in 600+ apartment buildings, convenience stores, and gyms all over the city. Since they're the first dry cleaner in SF actually open 24 hours, 7 days a week, the convenience factor is high. So, the customer only swipe into the kiosk using a credit card that have linked to their account. The customers find an open locker, and put your clothes in it.

Laundry Locker

Then, the customer just need close the door and lock it, entering a 4-digit code of their choosing for security's sake. Then, they need to send a text message to Laundry Locker with your locker number, letting them know when the laundry's ready to be picked up. 

Texting Laundry Locker

One of Laundry Locker's drivers swings by the location at least once a day to both pick up new laundry and drop off orders that have already been processed. The driver empties out the locker's bounty, bags it, tags it, scans it, and loads it into the van. It's then whisked off to the processing facility in Bayview. If the customer dropping off dry-cleaning, every single item of it is tagged with a tiny bar-code - often pressed onto the underside of the hemline where no one will see it. 

Bar-code

The garment is then laid out flat on a table, and a digital photo is taken of it. Yes, they take a digital photo of every item they have dry-cleaned. The company meant to give both the customer and Laundry Locker an inventory of all the items that were received, as well as document the exact condition they were received in - just in case there are any disputes. Once the items are scanned, the customer can do something pretty cool - log into their account on Laundry Locker's website, and can see the photo of each individual item.

Photo Taken

The customers can then add notes, like, "Please wash these pants in cold water," or, "There a stain on the left sleeve - get at it!" They can even mark the area of the article where a stain needs to be removed.

Customers Notes

Laundry Locker will remove stains and replace buttons for free. Then, the items are washed and/or dry cleaned, according to customers preferences. They can specify things like fragrance-free detergent, starch, and low-heat drying, though some of these feature cost extra. The washing machines at Laundry Locker are pretty high-tech and eco-friendly. Most high-volume washing machines use a solvent to remove the dirt and oil from the clothes, and that solvent is discarded after every use, which is not so great for the environment. Laundry Locker's machines use a silicon-based solvent which gets filtered after each cycle, meaning 85% of the solvent is re-used each week. These machines don't come cheap though - this one here cost over $100,000, which is at least ten times the cost of the traditional kind.

Washing Machine

Laundry Lockers Machines

Laundry Locker offers labor-intensive services like spot treatments and hand-pressing of garments. They've got large dryers for commercial orders - sports clubs, hotels, etc - in which several mesh bags of laundry from different customers will be dried at the same time. And then there are smaller dryers for individual customers. The one-order-per-dryer ratio lets each customer specify items like drying temperature and fabric softener preferences - something many other laundry services don't provide. Once the laundry finished, if it's wash-and-fold, it's folded at a folding station, and similar items (like, say, all your t-shirts) are grouped together, stacked, and wrapped in cellophane. If it's dry-cleaning, the items are hung on a conveyor belt and scanned again.

Garment Conveyor Machine

With many orders being processed at any given time, the conveyor belt carries a mix of lots of customers' garments. But thanks to some proprietary computer software, customers clothes are automatically filtered from the conveyor belt, grouped together, and spit out to the side in clusters of five. An employee then double-checks them and bags them up (using eco-friendly compos-table dry-cleaning bags), scans them, and sets them aside to be put on the van for delivery.

Employee Double Checks

Then the driver fills up a Laundry Locker van with bags of laundry, in an order correlating to the order of stops along the route - all very efficient-like.

Laundry Locker Van

Finally, the driver drops off customers laundry, stowing it in an open locker at the same facility where they dropped it off. The customers receive a text message and an email confirming that their laundry is available, and indicating which locker contains the items, along with a 4-digit code that can use to access it. The customers swing by, swipe in, enter the code - there are the clean clothes, wrapped up snug in a shiny bag, ready to be taken home. It was so easy since the company using latest technology and system to monitor the services.

Clean Clothes

Self Service Laundry (Coins)

Self Service Laundry (Coins) become popular nowadays. The services provided is only for Washer and Dryer by using coins. One of the example, BubbleLab Laundry Arcade that operates in Puchong, Malaysia. The Washer and Dryer only using 50 cent (coins) to operates. The customers only need to follow the instruction given which is easy to understand. The different between Premium Laundry Service and Self Service Laundry is whereby it use coins to operates and only provide normal wash and dryer. In stead of that, no need for owner or staff inside the shop while it's operate 24/7. It's only use the CCTV to monitor the shop. Meanwhile Premium Laundry Service specialize more on Dry Cleaning Services and need at least one staff to entertain the customers. BubbleLab Laundry Arcade provide 6 Washer 14kg, 6 Dryer 13kg and 1 Dryer 20kg for their customer's convenient. Other than Washer and Dryer, the owner provide Clothes Basket and Folding Table with Bench inside the shop. Customer also can surf the internet since 'Free Wifi' provided for them. 

Bubble Lab From Outside

Usually the customers only brings the laundry or garment that they need to wash and dry to the shop. Even though the shop has provide the detergent and softener for free, the customers can bring on their own. Before doing the laundry process, the customer needs to change their notes into coins at Coin Changer. They can exchange RM1, RM5 and RM10 notes into 50 cent coins. After that they can use the Washer and Dryer using the coins given.  

Coin Changer

To operate the Washer, first the customer needs to put their garment or linen into the Washer and make sure to close the door tighten. Secondly, they need to put the detergent or softener if necessary. Third, they need to choose the water temperature whether (1) Cold RM6.00; (2) Warm RM6.50; or (3) Hot RM7.00. After that, the customer needs to insert the coin according to the price shown beside the water temperature selection. The Washer takes only 24 minutes to finish the washing process.

Washer Instructions

Washer

After washing their clothes using the Washer, the customer can use the Dryer to get the clothes dry without waiting 2 or 3 days to dried outside the house. To operate the Dryer, the same instruction must be made. First, the customer unload the garment or laundry from Washer then put them into Dryer. Make sure the door is locked. Then, select the appropriate drying temperature. Insert the coins for required drying duration. Minimum drying time is 24 minutes for RM4.00, 30 minutes for RM5.00 while extra 50 cents for extra 5 minutes. Finally, press the button to start.  

 Dryer Instruction

Dryer

Dryer