As the immediate crisis of COVID-19 over the past two years abates, laundry operators in various sectors are adapting to lessons learned during the pandemic to succeed in today’s markets. Many are casting a wary eye on the prospect of a repeat of the shortages of textiles and other supplies that were triggered by COVID.

Industrial—Planning & Parleying Against Shortages

In one major shift in how this phenomenon is playing out, several operators we contacted said that “just-in-time” (JIT) ordering, a management technique fine-tuned during the 2008-’09 recession to limit spending, has undergone significant refinements as lead times for ...