As textile services operators explore ways to cut labor costs and increase plant efficiency, an option to achieve both of these goals is the use of machine-readable textile identification systems. Two machine-readable systems—barcodes and RFID chips—currently are in use in the industry, although neither method is close to penetrating 100% of laundry operations. While neither form dominates the industry, the benefits can be far reaching. 
 
“Once you move from human-readable garment identification to machine readable, it opens up huge opportunities for gathering information and automating laundry operations,” says Robert Benjamin, Softrol Systems Inc.’s vice president of finance ...