Plenty of U.S. laundry operators have toured high-tech plants worldwide looking for ways to enhance productivity that they see in facilities that typically operate with higher labor costs than those in the U.S. But few in our experience have altered their entire production process based on an idea that the owner observed in a laundry overseas. Jim Vaudreuil, president and CEO of Huebsch Services is the kind of innovator who would and did do just that with the uniform and facility services plant he owns and operates in Eau Claire, WI.

“We kind of came up with an idea of ...