Over the past 150 years, commercial laundering has evolved from a largely manual process to one that today relies not only on automated equipment, but “thinking machines” that help get the work out faster, thus freeing up managers for other duties.

Machine learning has a major role in this drive to enhance automated laundries, according to several experts we interviewed (see related article, pg. 18). Technically, machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI). It involves training algorithms (i.e., sets of instructions designed to perform a specific task) to evaluate data and make decisions or predictions without specific programming. These ...