Spotlight on Italy

Businesses need to invest in efficiency

1 July 2011



Italy’s textile care industries are finding that automation can increase efficiency and help businesses survive a difficult economy says Kathleen Armstrong


As the Italian economy continues to stagnate, the country’s textile care industries have found business slow. Unemployment in Italy remained high at 8.5% in the last quarter of 2010 and, by the first quarter of 2011, GDP had dropped to 0.4%.

“Italy is recovering more slowly than other European countries – recovery is not around the corner,” says Marco Niccolini from Renzacci.

This is reflected in the drycleaning sector where there is still an “overwhelming number of drycleaning shops”, Niccolini says. He believes that the number needs to fall until there are 8,000 – 9,000 shops in the country – there are now around 11,000 shops and most of these are family-owned.

According to Niccolini: “Some drycleaning shops are starting to recover but many are starting to close because of the way they are managed – using old machines and with no commercial policies.”

To compete, Niccolini says, drycleaners need to be educated about new ways of operating and to learn about more efficient machines. Renzacci’s latest multi-solvent Nebula combiclean system allows customers to use a combination of different washing techniques and reduce water consumption by up to 70%.

Drycleaners in shopping malls and supermarkets are suffering because of high rental costs and reduced custom, partly due to the proliferation of shopping malls, many of which have been built very close to each other – and every shopping centre has a drycleaning shop. Those drycleaners that survive best often have shops in two or three shopping centres or supermarkets, so they can achieve some economies of scale.

According to Roland Fleischmann from Ghidini, drycleaners in shopping centres and supermarkets are also more likely to have new, more efficient machines and bigger shops – and they focus more on price rather than quality, which means they can attract customers, although their margins, and therefore their profits, are low. While there are some franchises, such as One Hour Cleaner, they are only a few in Italy and most, even in shopping centres, are still family-owned.

Wetcleaning is also gaining in popularity and now accounts for 40 – 50% of the business for some drycleaners, Fleischmann says.

However, for Ghidini, which produces finishing equipment, basic ironing tables still make up 78% of its sales.

Many small traditional shops still regard automation as a concept for the future, although demand for shirt finishers is starting to grow.

“Drycleaners try to diversify their offering with additional services such as shirt finishing or by cutting costs,” says Massimo Sanvito from Pony. He adds that Pony supports customers by offering payment terms, by introducing cost-saving machinery and by allowing special prices for promotional or innovative projects.”

While Pony’s most popular product is still its ironing tables, such as its Silver-Sl, Sanvito says demand is growing for

high-performance shirt finishers such the 405.

Perc is still the most popular solvent. The Italian government is less proactive than some in Europe in inspecting premises to ensure that they comply with European environmental regulations. This allows many cleaners to continue to use old machines.

“We must be competitive but without support from our state,” says Francesco Vasca from Maestrelli. Despite the lack of Governmental pressure to change practices, he believes drycleaners will need to improve energy and water consumption and start to use more biodegradable and eco-compatible solvents to survive in future.

Interest in hydrocarbon and other solvents is gradually increasing.

“Younger generations of drycleaners usually have some background in accounting or business management and tend to have an entrepreneurial attitude,” says Trevil’s Corinna Mapelli. “They are moving from being craftsmen to becoming businessmen.”

“Successful companies are converting small shops in town to drop-off points, centralising production in a large plant in the outskirts,” she adds.

“The so-called traditional cleaners survive in smaller towns or in affluent areas where they can charge a price that suits their high quality.”

In addition, Mapelli says, some drycleaners are trying to enter the professional laundry business in the hope that they may secure larger volumes of business, following the example of many small linen supplies businesses that have achieved a regional reach.

Trevil is focusing on supplying its customers with automatic machines that will help them to increase productivity and do not require their personnel to be skilled in hand ironing.

“Ironing tables are still a large part of our sales, but only as a complement,” Mapelli adds.

“Successful cleaners run their operations like “assembly lines”, where each operator specialises in running a machine dedicated to a particular type of garment.”

“We have optimised our Trevistar shirt finisher to reduce drying time and increase quality – it can finish a shirt in under 50 seconds,” says Mapelli. “We have also developed a trouser machine that is able to optimise space usage and does not require a specialised operator.” The Pantastar can finish the hip and crease the without transferring the trousers to another unit but it can achieve the same quality as a topper and a press.

Stimulate growth

In the laundry sector, it is a similar story. “With strong policies aimed at containing public debt, there is a limited influx of public money into the economy to stimulate growth,” says John Balman of Alliance Laundry Systems. In addition, political infighting can “cloud and distract government actions and plans at least as much as the unclear forecast for the global economy.”

In 2009 – 2010, activity in the industrial laundry and rental market contracted. Hotels and restaurants that normally outsourced their laundry services sent in reduced volumes. Some did this because they had fewer customers, others because they had adopted a more environmentally friendly attitude by choosing to re-use towels or change linen every other night for longer stays.

“This led some industrial laundries, mainly smaller players, to bankruptcy,” Balman says. “Some suffered more than others. However, a few managed to expand (through buy-outs) and are now well positioned to face the future.”

According to Andrea Corazza, sales manager for Laundry Italia, distributor for Electrolux, price competition is getting stronger.

“The main challenge is to maintain a high-quality service without raising prices,” Corazza says.

So the company has focussed on providing its customers with efficient equipment that needs minimum labour and keeps running costs low.

Each sector of the textile rental market is influenced by different factors. Public hospitals rent textiles from big rental groups such as Servizi Italia or Servizi Ospedalieri, or others which also provide sterilisation or cleaning services. The big groups operate from a solid financial base, enhanced by the “Tremonti Law” which, up to June 2010, allowed them to obtain a tax reduction on investment in equipment. This boosted the number of investments and has had a positive impact on the rental market in 2010 for suppliers such as Electrolux.

In the hospitality market, the general downturn in activity has affected the occupation ratio of four- and five-star hotels particularly with regard to business custom, and this, in turn, has had a knock-on effect on linen quality.

The hotel chains use large rental laundries such as the Pedersoli Group, while independent hotels either rent or have their linen laundered in small family-owned laundries.

This can vary slightly depending on which part of the country tourist facilities are in. “In the north the tendency is to manage the linen service by using big commercial laundries, which have tunnel machines,” says Corazzi. “In the south, medium-size laundries are more common.”

In every town, there are also several small laundries providing textile services to restaurants. This is a very important sector in Italy, according to Jensen’s Gerda Jank. On the workwear side, garment rental is still a growing market.

Key players include companies such as Alsco and Elis.

“In terms of plant numbers, the only sector where we can see a consolidation is healthcare,” Jank adds, citing the recently opened Servizi Italia in Genoa – “the biggest and most automated laundry in Europe, fully supplied by Jensen”.

Elsewhere, family-owned businesses are still very prevalent and there are “hundreds of laundries”, Jank comments. “Nevertheless, as everywhere else in Europe, we anticipate that environmental constraints, safety regulations in industrial plants and the need for economies of scale will lead the Italian market into further consolidation in the laundry business.”

Balman believes that the number of on-premise laundries (OPLs) may be growing again particularly in ?northern Italy where four- and five-star hotels install them to process their higher quality linen.

“Some hotels groups have one centralised laundry structure catering to their internal needs. This trend puts some pressure on the industrial sector,” Balman comments.

He says the main challenges industrial laundries face are increases in utility costs, falling prices and more stringent environmental norms. Therefore, increased productivity, equipment that can help them save energy and utility costs, automation and efficient system management are critical to their success.

Automation benefits

Many customers have already chosen automation and energy-saving machines for their plants and are already realising the benefits, according to Alessandro Rolli from Kannegiesser. “This is the only way to be competitive and make money.”

He adds that manufacturers will continue to focus on the development of products that will deliver more in terms of energy cost savings, automation, ergonomics, operator output, reliability and data information.

“The level of the laundry operator knowledge base is getting lower, so machines must be user-friendly and safe to avoid mistakes and increase operator output,” adds Rolli. “Suppliers must be able to guarantee investments for developing automation, service, customised solutions and reliability.”

Jensen’s Gerda Jank says: “We can see a number of new trends in the Italian rental laundry business.

“They include bigger batch washers in order to produce more in the same space, highly automated soiled linen sorting, storing systems that help to ensure a better production flow in the washroom and an increasing need for track and trace information to improve linen quality management, reduce losses and increase linen lifetimes.”

However, with a depressed market in both laundry and drycleaning and little or no state support, suppliers in both drycleaning and laundry rely on export markets to survive.

“Pony’s entry into export markets is expanding throughout the world,” says Sanvito. “The most successful areas are Europe and Asia and we are gradually growing in North and South America.”

The hoped-for opening up of the African market is slow.

However, suppliers are keeping their eyes on potential opportunities in individual countries.

“Although Africa does not represent a big share of our export sales, we believe that it will become an interesting market in the long run,” Sanvito comments.


Map of Italy Map of Italy


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