CHICAGO — One completed cycle on a washer in your self-service laundry—known as a “turn”—may not seem like much on the surface, but it factors into a calculation that can play a huge role in illustrating your store’s busyness and efficiency.
American Coin-Op invited representatives from vended laundry equipment manufacturers to answer some questions about the performance metric known as turns per day and its place in self-service laundry operations and management.
Q: How can that metric be used to predict when a specific machine may need to be repaired or replaced?
Mike Hand, vice president of direct distribution, Alliance Laundry Systems (including Huebsch and Speed Queen brands): I don’t know that turns per day could be or should be used as a one-dimensional metric for machine replacement. You have to take more than turns into account. Factors such as age, maintenance record, appearance, efficiency, etc. all come into play.
Kevin Hietpas, director of sales, Dexter Laundry: Machines are all mechanical devices, and identical machines are designed to perform the same. All manufacturers recommend certain types of care or maintenance at certain time intervals or amounts of usage. Knowing which of your machines are reaching certain usage levels the fastest gives the owner a head start on what to be prepared for in the way of future maintenance.
Tod Sorensen, vice president of Girbau North America distributor Continental Girbau West: Owners can use a machine’s total turns as a marker of when it might be time to change out parts, such as bearings or seals, or consider replacing equipment. Trading in and buying new machines can be a tax advantage, as well.
Michael Buzzard, senior manager of commercial laundry product development, Whirlpool Corp. (including ADC, Maytag Commercial Laundry and Whirlpool brands): Maytag equipment is designed for long life but if you have variability in use, much higher frequency or much heavier use of some machines, you’re going to drive variability and wear and service requirements. Owners who notice an uneven usage pattern in their stores may want to consider strategies to drive that usage more evenly across their footprint, especially those underutilized machines, potentially using them for wash and fold if it’s attended. Or modifying the layout, providing incentives to use, things like that. … You don’t want to drive a lot of (service) calls on your equipment in sequence for obvious reasons. … I think that’s probably the biggest issue that turns can help address. It’s a pretty good signal of usage and wear.
Gary Gauthier, national sales manager, vended laundries, Pellerin Milnor Corp.: TPD figures are like odometers—when monitored over time, they can provide us with reasonable expectations for maintenance, repairs, and even replacement over time.
Q: Could turns per day be useful in signaling a need to try to divert business to less busy times of day or to look into the possibility of expanding by opening another store nearby?
Hietpas: The nature of our business is that stores will have busier times and slower times. If an owner sees that certain times are consistently slower than others, most of today’s newer machines have controls that allow for promotional pricing at set times. While most customers will still come to your laundry because it’s the time in their schedule that fits to do laundry, there are some customers who can be influenced by an incentive to come at another time, thereby freeing up time during a busier period.
With regard to expanding a location, or opening a new one, this would be indicated by a significant or ongoing increase in the number of turns/day. If you already have a healthy business, and turns continue to grow, it’s an indication that your market is healthy, and it might make sense to consider expanding your operation before a competitor notices that you are far busier than what might be normal.
Sorensen: Yes. By tracking turns, you can also see which machines and machine locations are most popular. If you have soft-mount washers, this information can prove useful in relocating equipment, or purchasing more popular machine sizes, while utilizing the store’s entire footprint. It’s easy to move soft-mount machines around because there’s no bolting, grouting or special foundation requirements.
Buzzard: In an ideal store, your machines are well utilized but also available and convenient for consumers. That’s a bit of a balance to strike but it may make sense to consider expansion or incentivizing off-peak usage if you find that a considerable amount of your open hours are at peak. If you’re at peak demand for a large share of your open hours and you’re turning away customers, it may make sense to start to consider some of the demand-shifting opportunities you have in pricing, or expansion.
Gauthier: Any store that starts consistently delivering TPD of 6 or higher should consider expansion or a second location. Chances are, if you don’t make that move, someone else will.
Hand: Many store owners will run specials based upon turns per day. For instance, if Tuesday and/or Wednesday are slow days and they see an overall waiting period on the weekends, they may run a discounted wash special to relieve the wait times or [overcrowding]. I wouldn’t use turns per day to justify another store in the area. There are many more variables that go into building another store—population, renters, traffic and median household income, to name a few.
Check back Thursday for another installment!
If you missed Part 1, you can read it HERE.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Bruce Beggs at [email protected].