News & Innovations

Hygiene meets sustainability in Heidelberg

Heidelberg is situated in the German state of Baden-Württemberg and is well-known for its picturesque old town and castle ruins, which attract a daily influx of visitors from all around the world. Should anyone happen to fall ill or suffer an accident, Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) is the first port of call.

Its numbers are impressive: as the largest employer in the region, with just under 15,000 employees and 2,599 beds, Heidelberg University Hospital looks after 85,000 inpatients and carries out over 1.16 million outpatient treatments.

To ensure the beds can be made with fresh sheets, the green theater linen and gowns hygienically cleaned, and the mops washed and ready to use at any time, UKHD’s central laundry decided to invest in two new JENSEN UniQ tunnel washers in order to process the daily 17 tonnes of laundry in two shifts: more than 60,000 items are washed every single day.

The central laundry has always been very consistent in adapting to the needs of the clinics and customers. Over time, it has aligned itself more and more with the services market. As early as 1993, it was supplying other, non-UKHD hospitals with textile services. It now offers an all-round textile service for hospitals, as well as a work clothing and cleaning mops service.

A logistical tour de force

The logistics of installing the new machines in the laundry was no small feat. A substantial part of the preparations involved converting the laundry building, including adapting the structural statics to the new machines. Marco Runge, Head of Laundry Services at UKHD, places great importance on meticulous preparation: “Every week, we had a jour fixe with JENSEN and all of the trades and suppliers; this type of project couldn’t have been any better prepared or managed,” he says. Project managers Michael Fliegner and Lars Luttermann maintained regular contact with Marco Runge and Joachim Langer from the laundry to ensure that the work and processes were optimally coordinated.

“The particular challenge in this large project was that we had to change the washing system without impeding the supply of clean laundry to the hospital,” says Rudolf Hofer, Regional Sales Manager.

While the machines were being replaced, the laundry had to make do with one old machine which was put into operation 24/7 for five weeks in order to process all of the laundry. “We all hoped that it would hold out until the end. If we had run into any problems, our personnel could have resorted to a partner laundry service to ensure the constant provision of clean, hygienic laundry to our University Hospital,” says Marco Runge.

The project got underway at the end of June. Two semitrailers came to take away the old machines, escorted by the police. The two new JENSEN machines were delivered not long afterwards, three weeks apart. This allowed the installation and commissioning to proceed in two stages; once the first tunnel washer was up and running, the second one was installed and commissioned.

Putting sustainability first

Heidelberg University Hospital places huge importance on sustainability, and for this project it received state funding. “Our laundry operates the first 12-tonne electric truck in the whole of the Rhein-Main region,” says Marco Runge with pride.

JENSEN has also long been committed to putting sustainability at the heart of its operations. The new JENSEN tunnel washers belong to their latest generation of machines. The two systems consist of a VacuTrans vacuum loading system, a UniQ 50-15 FlexRinse and a UniQ 50-12 FlexRinse, two ExQ 50 MD presses, and two DT 60 dryers.

The UniQ’s singular FlexWash technology with its full batch integrity provides maximum flexibility and excellent

washing performance. Thanks to their open drum design without paddles, JENSEN tunnel washers have the shortest transfer times in the industry. The Archimedean helix enables the full batch to be transported to the next chamber in just four seconds. The central laundry expects the new tunnel washers to speed up the entire washing process and reduce downtimes and fault messages, which should ultimately result in increased machine availability.

The machine’s modern design meets the highest safety and hygiene requirements, which is particularly important for UKHD, and it requires very little maintenance.

The FlexRinse technology ensures batch integrity in the entire machine and offers full process control with every batch. Thanks to the open drum design, the transfer is up to 50% faster than with conventional batch tunnel washers. Every batch stays in its own bath with its own individually programmed quantity of detergent, process water temperature, bath level, and other parameters. Washing is done in standing baths in the pre-wash and main wash areas (bath exchange process). Even the rinse zone is divided into completely separate baths, meaning that a FlexRinse bath exchange process is also used during rinsing. This makes the UniQ highly versatile and, thus, optimal for processing different types of laundry, which is ideal for UKHD.

“The first tunnel washer will mainly process green theater linen, towels, and bed linen, and the second one the mops, dirt trapper mats, and similar items,” says Marco Runge.

The tunnel washers are heated predominantly using gas-heated flow heaters, which makes them particularly energy-efficient. The target consumption during mixed operation is 4.5 l water/kg laundry (0.041 kWh electricity/kg laundry, and 0.15 kWh gas/kg laundry for the operation of the gas-heated flow heater). “Energy is a huge topic for us, and it is also the reason why JENSEN was awarded the contract. These are very good values for hospital laundry operations,” says Marco Runge, who understands this from his long-term experience of managing a laundry.

The new ExQ water extraction presses ensure maximum productivity and excellent water extraction performance thanks to faster process steps. The medium pressure model now extracts water from the laundry at a pressure of 40 bar, which means an additional increase in water extraction performance of 10% and a further improvement in residual moisture values.

The VacuTrans vacuum transport system is another piece of the overall automation puzzle, and its function is to load the two new tunnel washers. It accelerates the production flow between the machines, thus increasing productivity and making optimum use of the space.

The new UniQ era

“Assuming that a JENSEN tunnel washer has a service life of up to 30 years, I’ll have retired by the time a new one is needed,” says Laundry Manager Marco Runge with a grin. “My team and I are delighted with our new JENSEN UniQ tunnel washers, as it means we’ll be able to supply perfectly hygienic garments and linen much faster and more efficiently.”

“My predecessor Edgar Reisch was the one who initiated the tender, which I think was the right decision. I am sure that we have future-proofed ourselves with the two new JENSEN tunnel washers,” says Pirmin Huber, Director of Klinik-Service GmbH at Heidelberg University Hospital.