Toronto firm launders 18,000 uniforms a day
Published Monday August 11th, 2008
TORONTO - In a crisp white building in north Toronto, 18,000 uniforms are washed, dried, steamed and shipped each day to the army of autoworkers and repairmen who built cars and keep them running; to the bakers who make Weetabix and Timbits; to the chefs at East Side Mario's; to Toronto paramedics, truckers, painters, electricians and security guards.
Enzo's coveralls and Rosa's cooking smock, spattered with engine oil or paint or pesto sauce, are unloaded by trucks onto the dock of the Canadian Linen and Uniform Service's new location every afternoon.
They are sorted into barrel-sized bags weighing 90 to 100 kilograms each and hoisted into the air to begin a one-week journey through the factory before being returned to their rightful owners.
State-of-the-art radio-frequency chips sewn into the clothes keep track of them.
"I had a guy ask me: 'Is there any way my wife knows where I am?'" says Anthony Coulter, district manager of Canadian Linen and Uniform Service.
No. The chip is like a low-level transponder. It can only be read by the company's equipment at close range, and only contains information related to the clothing: The name of the wearer, the company he works for, what size he wears, how many times it's been washed, repaired. It is oblivious to marital fraud.
Most of the uniforms are cleaned in giant washers with a capacity of 200 kilograms. They shudder in the spin cycle like Maytags at home, although here the spin cycle is serious business, called high-speed extraction.
Forty-five minutes later, the clothes travel along a conveyor belt into the cavelike mouth of a waiting dryer.
From the dryer, they travel down another conveyor belt to women in running shoes, standing on anti-fatigue mats, who hang them on hangers, to be run through a steam tunnel. As they emerge, each item is individually inspected. Those that need it are sent for repair, to a row of four women at sewing machines.
Without interruption, it takes about three hours to complete the process, but the uniforms move through the cycle over the course of a week, remaining suspended in air for a couple of days at times, to synchronize delivery schedules.
Every company has its specifications. The uniforms for Maidstone Bakeries, the people who make Tim Hortons food, have no pockets, so nothing falls into the batter. Others are more stringent.
There is a Class 10 clean room at the heart of the building. Inside, the air contains no more than 10 particles per cubic metre larger than 0.5 microns. (A human hair is 50 to 70 microns in diameter.)
Employees must wash up and don scrubs to walk through the room surrounding the clean room, then stop and change once again before entering it. The room has positive air pressure - every time a door is opened, air is pushed outside instead of being sucked in.
This is where the uniforms used by those involved in electronics and auto manufacturing are washed, industries where even the smallest particulate can create large problems.
Coveralls for those working in electronics are made of 100 per cent polyester. Lines of carbon run through the blue nylon fabric like the pattern in graph paper, providing a network that dissipates static electricity. The right uniform is important in electronics. If you build up static and touch a circuit board, you could burn out a connector.
"If you're doing IPhones and that happens, their failure rate goes up," says Coulter.
Employees, in fact, are a major source of contamination.
"Under a microscope, you have stuff coming off of you all the time," says Coulter.
GM's truck plant in Oshawa, Ont., east of Toronto, is their biggest customer.
"GM has very distinct specifications. They inspected the fabric, how we wash, how we repair. We had to send test garments to Detroit," says Coulter.
Clothes are critical when it comes to painting cars.
"You want the paint to flow to the vehicle. If you're a source of electricity, you may draw the paint to you, or otherwise interfere with the paint process."
The imminent closure of the GM truck plant in Oshawa doesn't seem to faze Coulter, who has been in the business for 27 years. The company hopes to branch out, providing laundry services to the pharmaceutical industry.
Coulter is amused by some of the changes he's seen in three decades. The company used to keep an inventory of embroidered name tags on hand, names like Arthur and Fred, and the occasional Guillaume.
Over the years, the inventory changed, and they began stocking more Marios, Stephans. Then it was Polish names. Now they don't keep any inventory at all. The names are generated as needed.
"Now, who knows? It's Sowe, Maki." Coulter pauses and waves around the factory. At his feet is a pile of work shirts for Javad and Ahmmed.
Coulter is proud of the company's work. When he's driving around the city, he never fails to see someone wearing a uniform that has crossed his factory floor.
"It's not like working for the United Nations, but day to day, it's a lot of people."
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