Asfia Khan visits the laundry to see how it is able to offer quality service and also maintain profitability
Most leading international hotel operators consider an in-house laundry to be a profitable venture; however, it is not profit alone that motivates hotels to establish laundries within their premises. For flagship hotels like The Address chain of hotels and resorts which fall under the Emaar banner, the driving factor to set up an in-house laundry vis-à-vis a central laundry, has more to do with controlling the quality of the laundry than profit making.
The Address Downtown Burj Dubai (Khalifa) runs a large in-house laundry that is well-equipped to take on the linen not only from its own premises but that from The Address Dubai Mall, The Palace –The Old Town resort and the retail outlets of The Dubai Mall as well – all situated in Dubai’s prestigious Downtown area. No other laundry in the world can boast of operating so close to the world’s tallest tower and one of the world’s largest shopping malls.
Maintaining the flagship brand
Laundry manager Denzil D’Souza says that having an in-house laundry helps in ensuring that the entire laundering process runs according to what is expected of a five-star, flagship brand like The Address Downtown Burj Dubai.
“We know what the demands of our guests are and we can assure ourselves that we are doing a good job,” says D’Souza. Moreover, the biggest benefit of having an in-house laundry for The Address lies in the fact that guests can be pampered with the luxury of having their clothes laundered in the shortest time duration possible, i.e. even within an hour’s time if required ─ which would normally be the time required just to transport the clothes to a central laundry for instance, which would obviously be situated at a distance from the hotel.
Adhering stringently to quality, The Address employs a procedure of test-washing every linen piece twenty times to determine the quality of fabric before its purchase. “This procedure is slightly time consuming initially but gives us the desired long-term results as we are assured that the material is of good quality and can stand frequent washing,” says executive housekeeper Michele Millot. In addition, The Address maintains a 4.5 PAR linen rating which gives the linen enough rest before the next wash so that the fibres get enough time to get back into shape.
While The Address’ in-house laundry firmly maintains its grip on quality, it is not running a losing battle with its bottom line either. Between its own linen and uniforms of its own employees, guest laundry, mascots from The Dubai Mall’s Kidzania, food and beverage linen from The Dubai Mall’s restaurants and retail outlets, and the uniforms of employees of The Address Dubai Mall, the laundry functions equally well as a profit center. For The Palace –Old Town, express service for guest laundry is carried out during the night. In addition, the laundry caters to the laundering needs of the retail outlets from the adjacent Souq Al Bahar.
The Address’ 646 resident apartment blocks are also a source of revenue for the laundry which gets a lot of curtains and cushions to be washed from the residences part of the complex.
According to Millot, the laundry is a blessing in disguise for people staying in the residential area of the hotel. “Residents have the convenience of calling the housekeeping department in the same building to have their curtains taken off, laundered and hung back again, all within 24 hours. In fact, I have a person assigned to take down instructions as to how they would like their laundry done. It functions like one big family.”
Optimum clientele
With laundry pouring in from so many sources, it is evident that D’Souza has his hands full. The laundry works in two-shifts and operates from 6 am to 2 am on a daily basis. The laundry which has been planned to take on a load of 9.5 tons on a daily basis processes 8.5 tons of linen per day. 28 laundry employees cater to the laundry requirements of 1084 rooms, which includes 646 apartments, 194 hotel rooms and 244 rooms of The Address Dubai Mall.
The early morning shift at 6 am starts with processing uniforms from the night shift and table linen from the restaurants, before the bed sheets and towels start arriving when the housekeeping boys start their linen shift at 8 am.
Befitting a five-star signature hotel, linen is changed on a daily basis across all 196 hotel rooms as the hotel generally runs to full occupancy. The Address Downtown Burj Dubai has a very efficient collection system. Dirty linen from each floor is dropped in the laundry chute which reaches the laundry every fifteen minutes to be processed. Guest laundry is also picked up and deposited at an average of every fifteen minutes. A quick walk through the laundry shows a clean, efficient workplace with the latest machinery from Electrolux, a French-German collaboration. 11 washer-extractors line the wall, which includes 5 units capable of washing 110 kilos of laundry, 3 units of 56 kilos capacity and 4 units capable of washing 24 kilos of laundry. All machines indicate the weight that they being loaded with in order to achieve optimum loading and are equipped with an ergonomic drum that tilts and discharges the load once the wash cycle is over, thus helping the laundry save on manpower.
The machines are pre-programmed to process different types of laundry like bed sheets, towels, pool towels, food and beverage linen( dark and light), uniforms(dark, light, white). Each machine is also programmed to receive just the right type (starch for napkins, chemical to remove grease, chlorine bleach, oxygen bleach, product that removes the chemicals from clothes, etc.) and the right amount of chemicals during the wash, according to a pre-determined program, from a central dosing unit set up by Ecolab Gulf.
In case of any malfunctioning of the chemical dosing system, the machines stop automatically until the error is rectified. In case the chemical in the drum situated in the central dosing chamber gets over, the machine gives out a beep, signaling the need for replenishment of the chemical/drum change. Each machine is also programmed to recycle the wash water, however, at present the water is not being recycled due to some “smell issues” which need to be rectified.
Minimizing use of energy
The Address laundry pays keen attention to minimizing energy consumption and improving efficiency. D’Souza employs a procedure of half-drying laundry items like duvets and napkins before processing through the Flat Work Ironer. The laundry’s HVAC system was improved and upgraded leading to a reduction in drying time. “We can dry our laundry in 45 minutes after the changes in the HVAC system as compared to the 2 hours it used to take earlier. The newly-installed exhaust system sucks all the moisture from the clothes and helps to keep the air inside the tumble driers warm, thus saving time and energy.”
In addition, the laundry’s air-conditioning system is excellent, for despite the heat emanating from the flat work ironers which require steam of 200 degrees centigrade, the environment inside the laundry is pleasant.
Since the maintenance of hygiene is very important in the hospitality industry, the temperature of the wash water is set at 70 degrees centigrade which is enough to kill all the germs, says D’Souza. Food and beverage linen requires a temperature of 90 degrees. “The temperature of the water from the overhead tank is generally 40 degrees centigrade and we raise it to 70 or 90 by introducing steam.”
The laundry also receives a line of cool water to wash woolen garments in a small machine reserved for such clothes. For dry cleaning of guest garments, D’Souza uses perchlorethylene instead of the harsher chemical solution called percholon. The Address laundry has separate areas for processing guest and hotel linen with a supervisor for each which minimizes the chances of guest linen getting lost or misplaced.
D’Souza’s main job is to see that the whole process of washing, drying and ironing takes place seamlessly and that there is no pile-up of work at any given point. The main area where work can pile up is the area where bed sheets are washed and then fed in flat work ironers. This is also the area that needs utmost vigilance to spot any stains on bed sheets during the time when the bed sheets are being fed into the ironers. On spotting a stain, the laundry employee presses a button so that the bed sheet is removed from the cycle at the other end and does not get folded. The sensitivity of the sensors of the automated flat work ironers is regularly maintained by regular cleaning using vacuum air pipes.
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