TRSA held its final Regional Production Summit program of 2024, with the Northeast Production Summit and Plant Tours held in Newark, NJ, on Oct. 15-16. The summits featured a uniform design aimed at making a quality program more accessible to all members by bringing it to a central location within their region.
The Northeast Summit kicked off with a keynote session from Nancy Roberts, the CEO and founder of The DISC Wizard. Roberts gave a rundown on what emotional intelligence (EQ) is, the five traits of emotionally intelligent people and how attendees could use this knowledge to become more effective leaders. Roberts also gave attendees the option to complete an EQ evaluation beforehand and implemented how the audience scored in EQ traits into the presentation to fully cater her presentation to the audience.
Roberts was followed by a presentation from Todd Leeth, strategic growth leader at Spindle, with a focus on a production manager’s role in preventive maintenance. In this session, audience members learned how to save labor and energy costs by scheduling preventive maintenance during normal working hours. They also were given real-world examples of how preventive maintenance has been overlooked in different aspects of a laundry organization and what happened as a result. Finally, Leeth stressed the importance of scheduled meetings between production and maintenance staff members in keeping an organization flowing effectively and safely.
Don Bock, an industry consultant, followed with a presentation on “Fire Safety – Strategies for Prevention.” Bock delivered a comprehensive report on common sources of fire in laundries and the best strategies to prevent them. He also provided an explanation on different fire suppression systems a laundry may use.
Christopher Stammer, CEO of Volu Interactive, then gave a presentation on leadership skills and challenged the audience to consider whether they conduct themselves as captain or crew. As a United States Coast Guard licensed Master Captain and “aspiring professional sailor,” Stammer used real-world examples where ship captains have found themselves in catastrophic circumstances by not making informed decisions that a captain should have considered to avoid disaster. Stammer then led the audience through an exercise where they ranked a number of survival items that may be provided in a shipwreck in order of importance for survival, in a thought exercise used to illustrate the importance of collaboration while avoiding “group-think” in decision making as a leader. Stammer ended with tips on how to decipher your team’s individual desires and align those desires with incentives to maximize the performance of an organization.
Following Stammer was Keith Ware, an industry consultant, who delivered a presentation on process improvement and root-cause analysis. Ware began by explaining the basics of root-cause analysis. He then stressed the importance of thinking outside of the box when problem solving and building a team that is collaborative to streamline process improvement. To illustrate this point, Ware broke the audience up into groups and challenged them to build the highest structure out of marshmallows, dry spaghetti and pipe cleaners in five minutes. The audience was then given time to sit-in on and contribute to facilitated roundtables to discuss common issues and collaborate on strategies for improvement. Topics included EQ, leadership development and safety.
The first day of sessions ended with a standards and regulations update by TRSA’s vice president of government relations, Kevin Schwalb. Schwalb delivered a clear understanding of current laws and regulations that are important issues to TRSA and the overall industry. He also discussed new developments and predictions as the country enters a new presidential term.
On the second day, American Wear Inc. and Unitex Healthcare Laundry Services opened the doors to two of their local operations to give attendees a tour of their facilities.
American Wear was founded in 1951 by Nick Auriemma and has been family-owned and operated ever since. American Wear’s commitment to outstanding customer service and ethical practices has been carried forward by subsequent generations. Known for their innovative Star-Trac Garment Control™ system, which uses RFID chips to track garments, and their personalized Star-Image System™, American Wear offers tailored solutions and supports the local community in East Orange, NJ, through various initiatives.
Unitex Healthcare Laundry Services specializes in providing medical uniforms and linen rental services to the healthcare industry. The 68,000-square-foot Linden, NJ, facility established in June 2016, processes an impressive 50 million lbs. of textiles annually. This facility services bulk acute-healthcare items for extended-care facilities. Equipped with two tunnel washers, the plant features a fully automated washer and dryer system. Additionally, it utilizes overhead rail systems in both soiled and clean linen areas, ensuring efficient and streamlined operations.
The Regional Production Summit and Plant Tours will return in 2025. The West Coast meeting will take place on Jan. 22-23, 2025, in Arcadia, CA; the Midwest Summit is scheduled for March 26-27, 2025, in Rosemont, IL; and the Northeast Summit is slated for Oct. 21-22, 2025, in Philadelphia.
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Receive the latest updates on the linen, uniform and facility services industry from TRSA delivered straight to your inbox.
