Healthcare Checkup – New NOVO/Miami Plant Thriving

While challenges – from inflation to labor and material shortages – remain for laundry operators in the healthcare sector across North America, NOVO’s new plant in Miami has had a remarkably smooth entry to the South Florida acute and subacute market since its opening early last year, according to company executives.

“It almost sounds like it’s not true, but honestly this one went incredibly well,” said Shane Ledbetter, senior vice president of operations for NOVO Health Services. He’s overseen several openings of industrial plants outside of the linen, uniform and facility services industry. NOVO’s biggest challenge in this opening was navigating the complex permitting procedures mandated by Dade County and the city of Miami Gardens, located about 30 minutes northwest of downtown Miami, Ledbetter said. Watch for follow-up coverage in Textile Services magazine this fall.

Now that those issues are resolved, Ledbetter and the NOVO team, including General Manager Dragan Grabovac, are happy with the new plant that opened in late January 2022. Since then, NOVO has made a strong entry into the metro healthcare market by taking over accounts from CSI, an area healthcare provider that had an on-premise laundry that NOVO formerly managed. That facility has since closed, and NOVO has expanded its market presence beyond this initial influx of business. Currently the plant is processing 120,000-140,000 lbs. per day (54,431- 63,502 kg.) in an 80,000-square-foot (7,432-square-meter) plant. The plant is designed to process as much as 60 million lbs. per year, but Ledbetter says the team is working gradually to expand the plant’s throughput to ensure maximum quality and customer satisfaction. Virtually the entire laundry staff of CSI, including Grabovac, came over to NOVO when the OPL closed. The NOVO plant currently runs two shifts, six days a week with a staff of 186 people.

While labor issues are a challenge for businesses across North America, Ledbetter says that the transfer of CSI employees and the draw of a brand-new high-tech plant have made recruitment/retention relatively easy. “When you see the facility, it’s very nice,” he says. “It’s brand new.” Ledbetter adds that NOVO’s human resource focus is on paying fair wages and treating staff well. That includes dealing with the hot conditions common to South Florida. “They do an excellent job of ensuring that the employees feel appreciated, things like that,” Ledbetter says. “And we’ve done everything we can do to make the work environment as tolerable as it can be for employees.” During a recent walk-through of the plant, Textile Services Weekly noted that spot cooling pipes are located at every workstation to keep employees comfortable with a continuous flow of cool air.

The plant also has advanced automation and a unique layout aimed at avoiding production bottlenecks. Ledbetter notes that the plant’s two Kannegiesser tunnel washers (each with 17, 240 lb. [110 kg.] compartments) are not in a straight line with the dryers. When the textiles comes out of the press, they go into a sling and are stored in the ceiling. The goods are staged in another queue before going to the dryers. “It’s essentially two separate operations, whereas almost everyone else, the moment you come out of the press, the cake is going to the dryers,” he says. This U-shape configuration, with dryers parallel to the tunnels rather than at the ends, allows production at the soil end of the plant to continue, even if one or more of the dryers is down. “The bottleneck is still typically almost always going to be your dryers,” Ledbetter says. “So we’re able to keep that pipeline of product going to the dryers. Even if we were to have a dryer outage, we don’t have to shut down soil sort.”

Ledbetter, a veteran of Angelica as well as NOVO, said he was glad to have had the assistance of both Kannegiesser ETECH and ARCO/Murray in developing the new plant. “I think it was very beneficial to partner with someone like ARCO who had built plants before,” he said. “This is what they do. They were crucial in helping on the design aspect.” Ledbetter also commended Kannegiesser ETECH, noting that “Partnering with Kannegiesser also helped with the design and layout and proposed equipment assortment.”

Early on, Ledbetter and the NOVO team told the two vendors what volume they were going to need. Then they posed the question: “What’s the optimum setup to achieve our goals here?” The NOVO team is pleased with the results of its new plant that’s now thriving in the metro Miami healthcare market.