Healthcare Conference Closes Final Day with a Pair of Plant Tours

Attendees of TRSA’s 15th Annual Healthcare Conference this Oct. 14-15 in San Diego experienced innovation firsthand through two unique facility tours. The tours offered a behind-the-scenes look at how automation and advanced technologies are shaping the future of healthcare linen, uniform and facility services operations.

Tour One: Alsco Uniforms’ Vista Facility

Conference attendees toured the state-of-the-art Alsco Uniforms facility in Vista, CA, which opened in October 2024 following the company’s relocation from downtown San Diego. The 74,000-square-foot facility combines production, support and administrative functions under one roof and serves customers throughout Southern California across the healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, food service and automotive markets.

Designed as a high-capacity industrial laundry, the plant processes more than 280,000 pounds of textiles each week. The facility uses automation throughout its production floor, which enables higher productivity, streamlined operations and greater efficiency than traditional laundry plants.

Tour Two: PSYONIC

Attendees also visited PSYONIC, a pioneer in advanced bionic technology and developer of the Ability Hand, the world’s first touch-sensing bionic hand. The tour provided a rare behind-the-scenes look at how the company designs, builds and tests technologies that are transforming the interaction between humans, machines and robotics.

Participants learned how innovations initially developed for bionic applications are creating new possibilities for robotics and automation, particularly in handling flexible and unpredictable materials such as textiles. These capabilities are especially relevant to the linen, uniform and facility services industry, where tasks like sorting, moving, handling and folding textiles have historically been difficult to automate.

PSYONIC’s connection to the industry continues to grow. The company exhibited at The Clean Show 2025 alongside Spindle Robotics and is actively exploring how dexterous robotics can support automation within linen, uniform and facility services operations.