6 | Shared Hospital Services
soiled and clean linens. Operators sorted
incoming materials into carts, which were
then manually transported and loaded into
the processing machinery. When processing
was completed, the materials were unloaded
into carts again and then manually delivered
to finishing equipment.
Through an agreement with Softrol Sys-
tems and QI Systems, the laundry deployed
an automated sort-on-rail system, soil stor-
age system, and clean distribution system
which significantly reduced labor and added
to floor space. Smoyer says automation al-
lowed productivity to increase by 60 percent,
and that has been sustained over the last six
years of operation.
What Smoyers describes as a “renaissance
in textile manufacturing” has prompted oth-
er changes that not only impacts the laun-
dry, but possibly patients too. To put that in
proper context, Smoyer explains that there
was once a time when all fabrics were basi-
cally 100 percent cotton. Then poly/cotton
blends were introduced and later, more ex-
otic fabrications. Lately, the textile industry
has produced fabrics that have been specially
designed to resist staining or diminish the
spread of infectious microorganisms. Smoy-
