Rajko Šrimpf, BB Six Sigma, DFSS, TRIZ Level 3, Applied Reliability, August 2014

Designed with the Acclaro DFSS 5.2 and Minitab 16.2.4.0

Second take...

IDENTIFY

Project name: RFID Table Linen For The Industrial Laundries

Project overview:

The scope of this project is to design new type of table linen with the RFID chips. This innovation allows laundries to automate counting of the linen.

Problem statement:

Current problems with the industrial laundries is that they lease the linen to hotels and restaurant and then count the goods by hand. Automated counting of the linen will save time and money on manpower and inventory.

Customers/Stakeholders:

The RFID chips table linen will appeal only to large industrial laundries who do hotels & restaurants and have standard linen and of course can afford the investment into scanners and software technology needed to run the laundry at optimum efficency.

Goal of the Project:

The goal of the project is to design new table linen with RFID chips for laundries, where this technology has been put to good use for many years or so, so it‘s prowen technology.

Scope Statement:

The most important thing is not to change the product to acomodate the RFID chip.

DEFINE

Let‘s see 9 Screen regarding linen type, usage and procesing in laundries

Tunel scanner scaning linen on the conveyor belt.* Round scanner scaneing the linen in a bag.** Copyright Positek, http://www.positekrfid.com/

S-Curve of the cotton table linen

We see that we are at the end of the S-curve. The last adding feature are RFID chips.

Tunel washer*

Press extractor*

Dryer*

Ironer*

Standard big industrial laundry equipement for washing and ironing of the table linen:

If I was setting up a new laundry with the standard dimension linen, I would have put on all items RFID chips, but not napkins and sort them by sucking device. How many people sort your linen? How do you count your inventory and lost linen?

RestaurantsVacum sorting of the dirty linen with the RFID tags. Laundries in the USA do this several years allready.

* Copyright Kannegiesser, http://www.kannegiesser.com/

Some laundries don‘t dry table linen, they go direct on the ironer.

The Future of the Laundry Industry

We have designed VOC with the CTQ regarding to the competition:

DESIGN

So last year I did part of this project, but the results we‘re not what I have hoped for. So let‘s see how well chips stick to linen with the waterproof glue and tape at 60 degrees Celsius and 1400 rpm water extracting:

We see that 50 % chips fail before 12 wash cyclus!

2520151050

100

80

60

40

20

0

Wash cyclus to fail

Pe

rce

nt

50

Shape 2,48510

Scale 12,7346

Mean 11,2973

StDev 4,86015

Median 10,9884

IQ R 6,80987

A D* 3,740

C orrelation 0,963

Table of Statistics

Survival Plot for Start

Arbitrary Censoring - LSXY Estimates

Weibull

2520151050

0,5

0,4

0,3

0,2

0,1

0,0

Cyclus

Ra

te

Shape 2,48510

Scale 12,7346

Mean 11,2973

StDev 4,86015

Median 10,9884

IQ R 6,80987

A D* 3,740

C orrelation 0,963

Table of Statistics

Hazard Plot for Start

Arbitrary Censoring - LSXY Estimates

Weibull

The removal rate is accelerateing.

So this was the solution with thermic tape and waterpoof glue. It failed all the way to only 23 wahes. This is realy not the solution to use at all.

So let‘s use TRIZ to find fout why has the technology failed! Funny thing or so. I completley forgot about this project for ayear. Then I got inspired by a cup of coffee! You know I broke off the handle of the cup and glued it with this waterpoof glue. And forgot about that. Few months later I was drinking on my balcony in the morning coffee from the same cup. And then it occured to me. Why is handle after more then 20 washes still holding on to the cup? What is so different in dish washer then in laundry washer?

So the handle is still on?

So let‘s do the Root-Cause-Analysis

Table linen A cup

So we have to find a glue that is strong and waterproof but still flexible enough thus preventing breaking under force applied in laundry machine. So by the law of TRIZ there is a 95 % chance that somebody in some other field of use allready solved your problem. But where and how? There are new developement in TRIZ like I-TRIZ, BioTRIZ and so on. This solution was created by a classical TRIZ aproach.

So we need:• good glueing propertis between textile-glue and plastic-glue,• need to be waterproof and high temperature water resitant,• flexible to compensate on the forcers applied on glue,• extremly durable against wear and tear,• cheap solution.

I have conducted Function Orietated Search on internet and found an interesting solution used in other kind of industry:

Skate-boarding? Who, where?

It‘s not on the board, but it is in the shoes of yungsters. The brand new shoes get torn apart in few weeks if you have a sonthat skates non-stop. The shoes can be repaired with the special glue called: Shoe Goo, and does a very nice job.

I used this glue on the left. It did prety well. There are also special treatment of the glue to spread it easily on the surface. Use ice cubes to spread the glue evenly and glue does not stick to the ice. I have also tested the glue regarding the time to get strong. I takes about 15-20 minutes for the surface to harden enough so we can manipulate the textile and not be afraid to stick it to other goods in the box. Then I conducted a test if the glue to harden needs the flow of the air. I glued the simple coin on the fabric, waited 15 minutes and put it in the plastic envelope. I sealed the end. After 24 hours, I took the coin out of the envelope and the glue sticked perfectly. I couldn‘t get it out of the textile.

OPTIMIZE

So with the new solution I started testing the washing. The goal was to test wash as much as possible to see at what stage the glued chips fall off the linen. Then do Accelerate Life testing to go trought many temperatures. I have decided to test till 240 cyclus to prove the worth of this solution. I have conducted tests at 60 and 90 degress Celsius at 1400 rpm water extracting in laundry machine. So first test after 20 wash cyclus. I used 16 chips at 60 degress and 14 at 90 degress Celsius.

I have also used different type of fabric, left table linen, right a cloth. All the info and test are stored on disk with thepictures of every single chip and the whole chip setup on every 20 washes. So, I have put my trust on this glue. On the next slide you see what happens after extensive washing testing. I also predict that the high quality table linen will tear apart in much later and do much more wash cyclus than a cloth. The table linen was top quality used in German and English large laundries.

90 degrees Celsius 60 degrees Celsius

So let‘s see washing cyclus of the cloth with the 16 chips

100 washing cyclus 60 degrees Celsius

None of the chips fall off. On the left you can close look on the chips glued. Up the first 3 left position are of prevoius glue testing wich were left empty for the washing trials.

160 washing cyclus at 60 degrees Celsius

None of the chips fall off. But the washing cyclus tear up the fabric.

181 washing cyclus at 60 degrees Celsius

So the fabric is destroyed. All chips are still glued on the fabric. Much tearing bellow.

Torn fabrics, but chips are still on it.

So let‘s see washing cyclus of the table linen with the 14 chips

100 washing cyclus 90 degrees Celsius

None of the chips fall off. No tearing of the fabric yet. One the left are close ups of the glued chips. They hold on to the fabric.

180 washing cyclus at 90 degrees Celsius

None of the chips fall of. Much tearing of the fabric. Under two close ups you can see that fabrics is being destroyed by progressive washing cyclus.

240 washing cyclus at 90 degrees Celsius

None of the chips fall off. Table linen is completly destroyed. On the left close ups of chips and under them torn fabric.

VALIDATE

To wrap it up:

1. A cloth at 60 degrees Celsius was completly destroyed after 181 washes. So no further testing was done.2. A table linen at 90 degrees Celsius was torn apart and I ended washing at 240 cyclus.3. So the chips can hold on up to 240 and above wash cyclus.4. The question is, what type of linen is washed at laundry 240 times? It gets destroyed and is of no use after that. You can

not serve your customers with linen with holes and other tearing.5. Table linen of Alpine quality hold on up to 140 cylcus at 90 degrees Celsius, the competition much less.6. So it is proven, the glue technology can witstand progressive washing even at high temperature and belive me, no

laundry throws their money on high temperature. They all wash at lover set-ups.7. At 240 cyclus, yes you can get chips with brute force out of linen, but who washes for that long?8. At 140 cyclus they hold on the glue very strong.9. I tested only washing, it has yet to be tested at press-extractor, dryes, ironers for flat linen and tunnel dryers for clothes.10. The real point is that you can cheaply add RFID chips to the linen, glue is not expensive. I have tested it. First you glue,

wait 15-20 minutes, than you can manipulate the goods, but it takes a day to regain full strenght-even fully packed with no flow of air.

11. No Accelerated Life Testing was done, since none of the glue on the chips failed.12. No product is needed to be redesigned at all.13. I have put my heart and soul on 2.5 month of testing to prove my point.14. All information and pictures for every washing are stored in jpg and minitab files, so the progress of the project has been

fully documented.