bardusch in Geldern has got the hang of it when it comes to precious time savings

Improving well-being and safety at the workplace for both its customers and its employees is very important to bardusch as an innovative textile service company. Over 90,000 customers rely on its hygiene-certified textile service across Europe. It offers a comprehensive range of products and services in the field of textiles and industrial safety items; these can be washed, processed, folded and finished at the facilities. More than 1 million people wear bardusch work clothing daily – quality, comfort, design, skin compatibility and environmental friendliness are very important to the company.

With more than 20 sites in all regions of Germany and subsidiaries in six countries across Europe, bardusch now has one of the largest logistics networks in the textile service industry. Thanks to innovative technologies and continuous investment in our subsidiaries’ machinery, bardusch takes on particular responsibility for future generations.

It’s more than just time that is “precious” in Geldern

The town of Geldern with its approximately 35,000 inhabitants is on the Dutch border and around a one hour drive from the state capital Düsseldorf. Once a year, Geldern celebrates a very famous precious ring: for over 10 years, thousands of fans of the world-famous “The Lord of the Rings” have travelled to the town on Whitsun weekend to take part in the “Tolkien Days” festival. The book is one of the most commercially successful novels of the 20th century and the films have millions of fans. But who needs a precious ring when you can have precious time savings with the buttons right in front of you fully automatically in the future?

MetriQ – the loading station that combines ergonomics and economy
It’s easy to get the hang of the new MetriQ stations: the hanger turns however you want it to. Therefore, the garment is always fed in from front to back, meaning that the operator always places it on the same side. This enables high efficiency even when working on a mixture of items, reducing the need for pre-sorting. The option to feed in items with “buttons-to-the-front” is a particularly attractive solution for bardusch when processing work clothing with buttons. The feeding in from front to back also increases productivity, as the operators do not have to change position between processing garments.

In traditional systems, the hangers are always presented to the operator in the same way, meaning that the operator has to place the garment in the correct way by feeding it in from different sides, depending on the type of garment. In a mixed load, this wastes time, and can lead to ergonomic problems for the operator, especially if they have to fasten buttons or loops on the back of the garment.

Before, the hanger height was preset by the operator, and could not be adapted to each item of clothing. By contrast, MetriQ offers more: the hanger height can be adapted both to each operator AND to each type of garment. In this manner, the employee can set the hanger loading station to an ideal ergonomic height for each type of garment, reducing symptoms of fatigue and health-related costs. MetriQ also offers the widest range of hanger heights in the industry.

Optimal loading position 
Loading often occurs at a height that is not ergonomic and therefore causes muscle tension. MetriQ helps relieve the strain on the operator’s shoulders and back: the loading process, i.e. the action that the operator uses to place the garment on the hanger, is more flexible and enables an optimized, more ergonomic position. 

Maximum flexibility with the new garment system
“We already had a smaller Metricon system in use that required a lot of manual folding,” reports Project Engineer Ralph Möbus. “Tapping into product and process innovations for tomorrow’s world of work is part of our vision; this is why we chose a larger fully automated solution from JENSEN.

It’s incredible – we can now process many more garments in a single shift and have maximum flexibility with 15,000 Lobster hangers. We are really impressed.”

The new machinery includes two JENSEN Omega Pro Gas tunnel finishers and two JENSEN Fox 1200 folders. As the name Omega series suggests, the design of the conveyor system resembles the Greek letter Ω (“omega”). This simple yet ingenuous solution increases the transport distance within the machine, meaning the performance and finish quality of the garments is improved compared to conventional systems.

The new Fox 1200, which can automatically unload, fold and stack all kinds of garments and work clothing, has a new hanger approval system. The newly designed crossfold section increases productivity by 20% compared to its predecessor, the tried-and-tested Butterfly Fox AF.

15,000 Lobster hangers provide maximum flexibility: thanks to this large number, the shift can be planned and prepared one day beforehand. The versatile Lobster hanger system was designed by JENSEN specifically for automatic folding of garments and work clothing at the end of the sorting process. The folding Lobster hanger system is suitable for hanging all kinds of garments and work clothing.

What can be done in the event of global supply bottlenecks?
The system was meant to go into operation at the end of last year in Geldern. But the supply bottlenecks for various components, particularly when it comes to software and electric supplies, posed a large number of challenges for the project team around Sales Manager Sascha Wehr and the Technical Planner Carola Hinz. “The chip shortage set us back a long way,” admits Dirk Caster, Commercial Branch Manager in Geldern. We quickly considered how to get bardusch production up and running as soon as possible. And then we moved heaven and earth to obtain the most essential parts at the very least, in order that we could start production. The system is now running seamlessly with all components. “At times we were really worried – but there’s a great sense of team spirit when everything works out in the end,” says Sascha Wehr. An outstanding garment system, Metricon with MetriQ, which is Germany’s largest to date, was created in close collaboration with the Technical Branch Manager Thomas Terschlüsen and Dirk Caster.

bardusch’s vision – intelligent textile solutions for long-term growth
The bardusch company has a vision: developing intelligent textile solutions for long-term growth. This is clearly reflected in the new JENSEN garment solution. It makes creating added value for customers and employees while growing sustainably a reality. The new MetriQ loading stations have already been successfully installed and have entered into operation in many laundries, including in bardusch’s site in Basel.

“We were aware that switching over was going to be a challenge,” says Dirk Caster. "We brought our whole production team up to speed beforehand and visited the facility in Basel. The team was introduced to the new system there. We thought the collaboration with JENSEN was fantastic.”

The improved ergonomics have a direct effect on profitability, meaning that both the operating personnel and the management are very satisfied with it. Like the ring from “The Lord of the Rings”, time is precious: MetriQ ensures valuable time savings, as the buttons are shown to you directly and ergonomically.