Don't get taken to the cleaners
08/01/2001
Doing your homework ensures a garment program that fits your business
by Chris Anderson
 Photo courtesy of Cintas Cleanroom Resources |
Today's cleanroom managers are faced with three basic choices when setting up a garment program for their company: to purchase the garments outright; enter a lease-to-own agreement; or simply rent the garments needed. Regardless of which route they take, the garments will always need to be laundered and not surprisingly, cleanroom laundries are also the major suppliers of garments to the industry.
Before setting up a garment program, managers at cleanroom laundries have some advice: do your homework. The goal is to find garments made of materials that fit your application while finding a way to put the garments to use at a price point friendly to the company's bottom line.
But choosing the right vendor and the right program is not so easy. Factors ranging from the number (and size) of your garmented workers and the operations they perform to cash flow and anticipated employee turnover all play a vital role in helping you determine which program is right for you. Combine that with who will actually manage the nuts and bolts of collecting soiled garments, storing clean ones and distributing garments for in-service use and it's easy to see how an improperly managed program can be a real money trap.
First step: Assessment
Before any company can have its first conversation about whether it wants to buy or rent its cleanroom garments, the first activity is to clearly define what the garments should accomplish. "Companies have to evaluate their own application from the very beginning," says Jan Eudy, corporate quality assurance manager for Cincinnati-based Cintas Cleanroom Resources. "What is their cleanroom classification and what do they want to accomplish? For example with an ISO Class 3 which is a [Fed-Std 209E] Class 1 cleanroom, you are going to want to select a garment system complete with fabric and bindings that is going to support the cleanliness classification of that ISO Class 3."
Other factors need to be taken into account as well. ESD properties or antimicrobial treatments of the fabric, for instance, will vary according to industry, but without first assessing where the garments will be used and what a company hopes to accomplish with the garments, there is no starting point for discussions about the best way to structure a program.
Going hand in hand with fabric choice is the frequency of change-out for the particular operation. Is it once a week or once a day? Again the manufacturer, according to that company's standards and goals, should determine all of this for each specific operation conducted within a controlled environment at their facility.
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Bob Spector, director of technical service for Prudential Cleanroom Services (Round Rock, TX), likes to see companies create committees that help assess both the need within the manufacturing environment and what garment will work best in practice within the cleanroom. Comprising workers from management, purchasing, process engineers and production workers, these teams can bring a complete view of what is needed. "People who work in cleanrooms, some are more objective than others and hopefully you can have someone in the room who understands why things are done a certain way," says Spector. "Process engineers may tell you one thing about a particular activity, but the person who actually does it is going to bring up something different and important, because they do the job everyday."
When you stop to consider that in an average cleanroom people introduce roughly 80 percent of contamination, it's easy to understand why assessment is vital to getting the most out of your garment program.
To buy or rent?
More and more it seems these days, companies operating cleanrooms are choosing to rent the garments worn by the workers instead of purchasing them. A prevailing reason for renting is it places the burden of managing the garment program on the laundry providing the service. Depending on the number of employees at a company and the rate of change, even a mid-sized operation can have thousands of garments that need washing storing and distribution to employees.
 The folding and packing process. Photos courtesy of UniClean Cleanroom Garment Services. |
"With a rental program or a lease-wash program, a company is going to have their service provider or laundry take responsibility for managing that inventory of garments," says Jim Mara, division sales manager for UniClean cleanroom Garment Services (Nashua, NH). "That can be a tremendous burden off the end-user and for no other reason would compel me to consider renting," he says.
But when all is said and done, the decision to either buy outright, lease to own or rent cleanroom garments usually comes down to dollars and cents. The word from cleanroom laundries that run these programs is simple and straightforward: Know all of the costs associated with any of the three before making a final decision.
"Too many companies have gotten into rental programs based on just the rental cost and without a full understanding of other costs they may have over the life of the program," says Jay Valentine, general manager of Servitex Cleanroom Resources (Durham, NC). The results can often be unexpected bills at the end of the rental agreement or even during the program for repairs to damaged garments or replacements of those that can't be repaired.
"You will have to understand if you will be charged for certain services and how much, then build it into your overall budget — 'x' percent the first year and a little more each year until the end," says Mara. "If you don't do this you are not going to have a reasonable idea of the real cost of a rental program."
 Cleanroom washing machines. Photo courtesy of UniClean Cleanroom Garment Services. |
Examples of what to look for before signing a rental contract include charges for loss
eplacement, repair, special cleaning, restocking, delivery and yearly rental increases, to name the most common. It's not enough to simply assess the straight rental cost when comparing price quotes, says Brad Whitsel of Whitsel Associates (Chambersburg, PA). "In order to compare one vendor to the next it is important to know the total cost of the rental program not just the rental fee," says Whitsel. "From this you can determine the total cost per change, which is how pricing should be evaluated."
Purchasing garments has its share of benefits and drawbacks. "The companies that own their own garments are generally the ones that have the resources to manage it," says Jeremy Smith, general manager with Cintas. "These companies generally like to have control of their operations from top to bottom."
For those companies considering purchase, it is important to remember that your staff today may not resemble your staff a year, or even a few months, from now. Personnel changes will usually result in the need to buy a new garment set for the new employee. With garment sets ranging anywhere from $150 for a weekly garment change to thousands of dollars per set for daily changes, even slight employment fluctuations can result in hefty cash outlays.
Which is why many companies choose to rent. A good rental contract will allow you to swap out garments of the wrong size and will even make it easy to add garments if your operation grows. In many cases, the service provider will also put its own employee in-house at the client company to manage the distribution of new garments and the collection of soiled ones to be sent to the laundry. "These days we are seeing many companies that don't want to have anyone on payroll doing anything that's not related to their product," says Valentine, "and that usually steers them to a rental program."
The audit
All the service providers interviewed for this story agreed on a couple of points. First, never enter into an agreement with a garment provider without first conducting a top-to-bottom audit of their operation. Second, there is no such thing as a stupid question during the audit process. If you don't know, ask.
 Photo courtesy of Cintas Cleanroom Resources |
"Once you've narrowed your choices to two or three [service providers] visiting those facilities that would service your account is a must," says Smith of Cintas. "The main purpose of the audit is to determine the quality of the operation, to discover that company's standard operational procedures and to see how documented the process is." Smith points out the importance of the service provider being procedurally driven. In some companies the quality may be the result of a core group of employees. If those employees leave and the organization is not running by a strict set of procedures, quality can suffer.
Mara says asking for references is important, but only if the intention is to thoroughly check them. "Let's face it, people aren't going to give references that aren't good," he says, "but you can check on some other things like how the company responds to emergencies and how quickly they return phone calls and how they make their deliveries." The information gathered by checking references can provide a good snapshot of a company's commitment to service and how well it responds to the needs of customers. All things being equal, it is often good service that makes good garment providers stand out from the crowd.
Eudy of Cintas thinks a good first step for an audit is to examine "the complete circle" from delivery of garments to their use, the pick up of laundering and delivery back to the end-user.
In this process, you should have the opportunity to meet the general manager, the laundry manger, the quality manager, the office manager, essentially anyone who will have contact with your company during the term of the agreement.
Additionally, Mara thinks both the laundry and the end-user company should endeavor to provide as much information about their operations as practical. "If you and I are going to do business," he says. "I want to know as much about your business and what your plans are, what expansion plans there are, what you hope to accomplish and your goals for your garment program and your cleanroom. The more I know about what your intentions are the better I'm going to be able to offer a program that is going to work well for you."
In the end, the best customer is an informed customer. Spector says end-users should never leave a question unasked. "This is very important to your business, so you better understand exactly what you are getting for garments and how the program works," he says.