National Clothesline

European Finishing Equipment Corp., the exclusive distributor of Hi-Steam processing equipment, has appointed Cleaners Future Tech as its west coast representative. Bill Alvarez of Cleaners Future Tech has experience and knowledge in operating drycleaning and laundry businesses and hands-on knowledge of cleaning machinery. The Fountain Valley, CA, company has Hi-Steam machines in an actual plant setting and will host monthly demonstration and training seminars for those who want to see Hi-Steam tensioning and other pressing equipment in full operation.

Alvarez can also help with applications for South Coast Air Quality Management District financial incentive grants. He can be reached at (877) 877-8373.

Columbia Dry Cleaning Machines has received two gold awards from the American Advertising Federation’s Professional Ad Club of the East. The awards ceremony was held in Greenville, NC.

Columbia won a gold award in the “Full Page/Trade Publications” category for its entire 2002 branding print campaign and another gold in the same category for the single ad title “Mint.”

Lewis Advertising, based in Rocky Mount, NC, developed and placed all of Columbia’s brand work.

“We take great pride in pushing the envelope with our advertising and we will continue to try to provoke serious thought and engage our customers by portraying the Columbia brand in unique and compelling ways,” said Stephen Langiulli, president of Columbia.

“Our new campaign is currently in development and we’re confident that it will continue to position Columbia as the industry leader in performance, technology, sales and service,” he added.

Columbia Dry Cleaning Machines is an ILSA worldwide company headquartered in West Babylon, NY, with sales and distribution networks across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

PureDry solvent and the AMA PureDry drycleaning machines were formally introduced in Europe this last month by Alpha Techniek, the AMA distributor located in The Netherlands.

Alpha Techniek hosted Holland’s annual association exhibition, Workshop 2003 which featured the European premier of PureDry, seminars, meetings and table top displays. Over 250 people were in attendance for the one day event.

AMA was represented by Alessandro Soffritti from Italy and Joel Franklin from the United States. An AMA HC 55 dry cleaning machine was operational with PureDry.

Drycleaning operators from Germany and Holland brought customer garments to be processed in PureDry. All types of garments were processed, including leathers, suedes and beaded items. Colors were mixed with whites for demonstration purposes.

PureDry will review all European legislation and regulatory issues. All components of PureDry are approved by EINECS (European Industry of Notified Existing Chemical Substances).

At a recent session of the East Coast School of Drycleaning, assistant school director Rick Watson showed students how to inexpensively create a wetcleaning system using the air bubbling method. The system gently agitates delicate fabrics that would not be safe to the agitation of a wetcleaning system with the wheel rotating. To do this, Watson installed a regulated air line form the air compressor at the bottom of a large plastic tub (next to the washer in the photo). The bubbling system also aids bleaching by allowing better penetration of the bleach since the fabric weave is gently opened up. Dye bleeding on color fabrics is also reduced since the system does not allow loss to dye to migrate or etch into the surrounding system. More information on the system is available by calling Watson toll-free at (866) 783-3322.

A new group called America’s Best Cleaners held its first national meeting at Jones Cleaning Centers in Fresno, CA.

The center price of the meeting was a new 7,500 sq. ft. plant just opened by Robin and Sharon Kraemer of Jones Cleaning Centers Inc. The plant includes a multi-lane interior drive-through that has one lane for drycleaning only, another for drycleaning and coffee and an outside lane that leads to a coffee kiosk.

At the core of the plant’s technology is a MetalProgetti conveyor system that distributes garments to the pressing stations and takes finished garments to a sorting/assembly conveyor. That conveyor takes inspected garments, sorts them and, upon completion of the order, extracts them and send them to a bagging station. The Kraemers had six inspectors/assemblers/packagers prior to setting up this system. Now they have three.

The system is driven and monitored by the SPOT 2000 POS computer system using Radio Frequency (RFID) chips. The system can track every garment, where it is at any given moment and also tracks the number of garments a presser has pressed, red-dos by employee and other information. Lost garments can be quickly identified, found and returned to the production process.

For the drive-through operation, SPOT and MetalProgetti developed SPOTScanPC, a hand-held device that lets store personnel conduct received and pick-up transactions at the customer’s care.

For pick-up items, commands are sent through a wireless network to the MetalProgetti system and the conveyor extracts the complete order automatically.

The plant was designed by Ed D’Elicio of Effective Solutions in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. He has four new facilities on the drawing board for member of America’s Best Cleaners, ranging in size from 6,000 to 32,000 square feet.