Market Sector Roundtable Captures Members’ Views of Key Issues
TRSA’s Industrial, Uniform and Workwear Committee presented “Market Sector Conversations” on Nov. 7. In this virtual roundtable discussion on Zoom, nearly 30 members offered perspectives on four of the committee’s key 2023 industry issues: sustainability, service, energy savings and route material handling.
Such discussions guide TRSA operator members in serving the linen, uniform and facility services market by facilitating participant experience-sharing as it relates to issues serving significant customer industries: food-and-beverage (restaurants), healthcare (acute and nonacute), hospitality (hotels and lodging) and industrial (all other industries, largely businesses that are primarily uniform accounts).
Committee members moderated the discussions, questioning participants about their experiences and opinions related to each of the four issues. Jay Seiver, director, development and deployment, Alliant Systems, Irving, TX, moderated the breakout group on healthcare and hospitality. Committee chair Tim Fry, president, CVR Uniforms, Shippensburg, PA; and Steve Royals, president, Performance Matters, High Point, NC, facilitated the F&B and industrial group discussions.
Moderators prepared to prompt participants to discuss a broad range of participants’ opinions and experiences with the four covered issues:
Sustainability. It’s defined literally as “ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time,” but it’s most closely associated with its business context: preventing the depletion of natural or physical resources so that an organization will be viable for the long term. The industry is generally viewed as highly sustainable given its 100-year-plus history and its focus on reusable textiles.
Service. Participants were asked to give their definitions of exceptional service. They updated each other on the state of customers’ textile loss and abuse, given the difficulty of satisfying customers who don’t own up to their self-inflicted losses. They discussed the responsiveness of customers to their efforts to measure their satisfaction, e.g., proactive or needing to rely on spontaneous praise or complaint in real time to gauge it.
Energy Saving. With Todd Leeth (Spindle, Woodridge, IL) and Ben Jones (Kannegiesser ETECH, Newtown, PA) providing background on technicalities of measuring savings and facilitating them through efficient equipment design, participants were prompted to consider steps to optimize consumption. Textile product manufacturers were included in the discussion as well, describing steps their businesses have taken to economize on energy use and how textiles have evolved to make their laundry processing more energy efficient.
Route Material Handling. Drivers’ abilities to handle loads vary based on each one’s physical capabilities. Typically, the younger and stronger, the better. But you don’t know exactly what anyone can handle – only they know for themselves. Participants agreed drivers (and other employees who handle heavy loads) need to be prompted to tell management what kind of support they need, to ensure their limits are recognized before they get hurt.