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OBITUARY: John Laithwaite, founder of JLA
UK
John Laithwaite, founder of JLA, sadly passed away on 11 March aged 79. Born on 26 June 1944, he spent his youth in Alkrington, Manchester, with parents Ada and Glen and elder sister Norma. From a young age John was ambitious, driven, adventurous and had an overwhelming desire to travel. He started his professional career in 1960s Manchester,as a bank clerk at Martin’s (which became Barclays) where he met his wife Sue, moving on to work with his father running a group of launderettes in Manchester as an engineer – which was a surprise as when he first met his wife he couldn’t even change a plug, so it was daunting at first.
Sveriges Tvätteriförbund Autumn meeting date announced
SWEDEN/INTERNATIONAL
Daniel Karrholt of Sveriges Tvätteriförbund the Swedish Textile Services Association told LCNi he expects 200 delegates to its autumn meeting in November which will be a joint affair with the Danish Textile Services Association (BVT). The event will take place on 16 November at Profilhotels Halmstad Plaza, Halmstad, Sweden.
Miele Professional appoints Samantha Dale to marketing post GB and Ireland
UK & IRELAND
The professional division of Miele, an industry leading manufacturer of commercial laundry and dishwashing solutions has appointed Samantha Dale as marketing manager for Great Britain and Ireland. With seven years of experience working within the sales and marketing department at Miele, Dale will oversee strategic and tactical marketing campaigns across the hospitality, care, and service (HCS) sectors, as well as the laboratory, medical and dentistry (LMD) sectors.
Accessories, adornments, buttons and trims – Part 2
Textiles are littered with traps for the unwary cleaner. Roger Cawood and Richard Neale ag problems and provide solutions
Smashing the greenhouse gas problem
Climate change is posing signicant problems for laundries, but with some thought and forward planning there are opportunities to mitigate the risks and the long-term effects on unit costs. Here, in a special feature, Richard Neale investigates alternative energy sources
Fault analysis: recognise problems and allocate responsibility – 1
Richard Neale of LTC Worldwide looks at problems which could provide the essential tools to argue the laundry’s corner as it strives for a fair outcome in the constant laundry/customer blame-game
Finishing equipment maintenance – Part 1
Is your equipment working for you? Or, perhaps more to the point – are you and your staff working for your equipment? Much of my working life has been spent monitoring, checking and investigating performance and equipment faults in drycleaning units and factories and I never cease to be amazed at the sorry state of some of the finishing equipment I come across. Moreover, in the vast majority of cases the management and staff were unaware there was anything wrong. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that out of many hundreds of audits it was not uncommon to find at least one serious fault that was adversely affecting quality, productivity or overheads. It is also the case that on occasion I have also found major faults on new equipment when training new business start-ups or shop takeovers: for example, scissor press bucks seriously out of alignment, flexible vacuum hoses not connected and equipment fans running in the wrong direction.
Unique values and amazing messages
Industrial laundries are one of the most important infrastructures in modern societies. This makes our industry a threshold technology with a wealth of unique values and amazing messages that we keep well hidden and fail to use. It is time to change that, says Steen Søgaard
The best drying days
Modern dryers incorporate the latest technology along with energy saving features to ensure there is never, ever again such a thing as a bad drying day
All that glisters…
…isnt gold. The glitz and glamour of the Coronation added a much-needed shine to the background of a lacklustre economy but despite difcult trading conditions UK laundries continue to survive and show resilience. Eugene Gerden and Kathy Bowry report