Seeing the spots before your eyes
ou have all heard
that expression: “You have spots before your eyes.”
In our industry that expression is one of the most important
factors in spot and stain removal.
Last month’s article spoke of the
mishaps and absence of training and supervising your customer
service representatives (CSRs). This article will stress the
importance of catching the customers’ spots and other
problemsts when the garments are received for processing. Also
of great importance is the catching of spots that were not
noticed at receiving, prespottting, drycleaning classification
and after the drycleaning process.
 | ||
Therefore, it is critical that the
finishing department receive all the support possible from the
customer service area and all departments in the production
plant. But also critical is the need for complete customer
satisfaction via a garment free of spots (or a sensible
explanation if not removed), odorless cleaned and smartly
pressed.
The CSR should be trained to ask the
customer three questions:
1. Do you have
any spots to be removed?
2. If the
answer is “yes,” do you know what they are?
3. Can you
tell me about how long they have been in there?
While the customer is pointing out the
spots, the CSR should be “pinpointing” them either
with tailor’s chalk or “stick-on arrows.”
NOTE: I, personally, like the tailor’s chalk since the
stick-on arrows cause a very untidy mess around the spotting
board and elsewhere in that department. I always get a few
stuck to the soles of my shoes when consulting and training in
the drycleaning/spotting department.
The chalk is easily removed by steam,
water spray or drycleaning, and it is available in white (for
all colors) and blue (for whites); it can be obtained in the
form of a square or in a pen. A “prespot tag” is
then prepared explaining the details of the spots, and it is
safety-pinned onto the garment near the marking tag or inserted
in the folded tag.
It is advisable to place a notation of
spots on the invoice, especially when the invoice is prepared
at point of sale rather than at the marking area. This will
ensure that the customer knew of the presence of the spots when
the order was received for process at the counter. It also
notifies the inspector and assembler that there were spots on
the garments when received at the counter and that they are now
removed or noted if not removed after a conscientious attempt
by the spotter.
If the spotter attaches a note, or
“sorry tag,” to the garment after a conscientious
effort to remove the spot, the finishers and inspector are
thereby notified that the spot was seen and worked on.
Otherwise, they will send the garment back for spotting with
the thought that it was overseen.
Note: I have seen a lot of lost production
time by sending a garment back for spotting and re-cleaning
after the spot was worked on simply because the spotter did not
notify the finishers and inspector that the spot could not be
safely removed.
The garments that have been designated by
the CSRs as having spots or other soils should be sent to the
drycleaning department separately from the other garments that
did not appear to have spots. This is not to say, however, that
these garments are spot-free. Before classifying for
drycleaning, the cleaner/spotter should examine the spotted
garments to determine which ones should be pre-spotted and
which ones should be drycleaned or wetcleaned for spot removal.
If your plant follows care labels
religiously, then all garments with “wash” care
labels would automatically be wetcleaned, and the
cleaner/spotter would pre-spot those garments on the dry side
or with wet side POG for those spots that are not
water-soluble.
Note: After pre-spotting on the dry side,
and flushing with VDS, the spotted area must be completely
dried before entering the wet washer or hand wash tub. Wetside
POG should be flushed with steam or water to avoid
redeposition.
Inspection for post-spotting after
cleaning
Here is where most plants fall down, and
the production process slows down. Most spotters feel that
since they have closely followed the pre-spotting procedure
they do not need to closely inspect each garment for spots
after they have been cleaned. Well, they are 100 percent wrong.
This is where inspection for spots is most needed since many
spots could have been buried into the fabric and not noticed
before cleaning. Even the customer did not know that the spots
were put on his/her garment while it was being worn, especially
at the dinner table.
Although a good cleaning formula, with the
use of controlled moisture in a properly charged anionic
detergent system, will remove most of the water-soluble spots,
there are also spots that require chemical action for removal.
Since there is no way of telling those
water-soluble spots that will require some chemical action from
those water-soluble spots that do not require chemical action,
the need for post cleaning inspection for spots is absolutely
necessary. This means that the spotter must closely inspect
EACH GARMENT from top to bottom and on both sides.
The equipment needed for the post cleaning
inspection for spots consists of a 36-inch square, tilted table
made of either plastic (Bakelite, Lucite, laminate), Masonite,
hardwood or stainless steel. Many years ago a perfect
inspection board, stainless steel, perforated in the center,
tilted and equipped with a steam and air gun was used by the
industry. As with most of the good ideas, it has gone into
oblivion although I have seen a few still hanging around and
not being used. A good substitute for this board would be a
drafting board with built-in lighting, but you would still need
a four-tube fluorescent fixture with daylight bulbs suspended
over the board.
The procedure is quite simple. The load is
placed into a basket and wheeled over to the spotting area.
Each garment is removed from the basket and placed flat against
the inspection board. The garment is “eyeballed”
from top to bottom, then it is flipped over and inspected on
the other side. In this operation, there are three situations:
1. A
“pass-up” which has no spots and is hung aside on
the slick rail leading to the finishers.
2. “Easy-to-remove”
spots in which the spotter rotates to the right and works on
the spots using the steam/air/vacuum spotting board; he/she
hangs the garment on the same slick rail leading to the
finishers.
3. “Long-winded”
spots that require extra time and chemicals to remove; these
are tossed into the tray under the spotting board to be worked
on between loads.
As you can see, the spotter sends most of
the work down to the finishers in an efficient and timely
manner, and the lot, or day’s work, is constantly moving
forward.
If a spot cannot be safely removed after a
sincere effort, the spotter attaches a note or “sorry
tag” telling all concerned that the spot was seen and
attempted but cannot be removed safely, so please do not return
it; just send it forward with the note attached. In this
respect, everybody, including the customer, is advised of the
reason for the spot still remaining.
Note: Most plant managers feel that the
note, or “sorry tag” is a substitute for spot
removal, and that is sometimes true; but everybody, and the
customer, must be advised that the spot cannot be safely
removed. In that case, the spotter will continue to work on the
spot only if the customer is willing to accept the risk.
Spot removal, therefore, begins at the
counter, not at the spotting board. The CSRs can save a great
deal of production time and increase customer satisfaction
tremendously merely by following the basic principles outlined
in this article. The spotter can save time by eliminating
pre-spotting every garment in the load.
Note: My spotting video, “The
Caplan Method of Stain Removal,” which includes my
comprehensive text and handy spotting board reference available
in English, Spanish and Korean (video only in Korean) from the
Golomb Group, c/o Dennis McCrory, 7664 Plaza Court,
Willowbrook, IL 60521, phone (800) 679-5856. A lecture and
demonstration are presented similar to my classes over the
years at IFI and SDA. This video and text are ideal for
training inexperienced spotters as well as a good review for
experienced spotters. Digesting with enzymes, bleaching,
oxidized oil stains and caramelized sugar stains are discussed
and demonstrated. An article on “Removing Spots in the
Cleaning Machine” and an article on “How to
Increase Production in the Spotting Department” are
included in the comprehensive text book.
Also available from the Golomb Group, in
English and Spanish, is my video on step-by-step shirt
finishing which includes my comprehensive text in loose-leaf
form outlining each procedure for single-operator and
two-operator cabinet shirt unit using a cabinet sleeve press.
Proper forming of the collar using heated collar formers is
demonstrated. Each lay is demonstrated for top quality with
very little effort by the operators. Attractive detailing and
packaging of the hangered shirt, padding, steam pressures and
timing are all discussed. A unique wash formula for whiter
whites and brighter colors and removal of grease and body oils
is included in the loose-leaf text book.
My experience with shirts spans over 55
years with US Army as a principal laundry and dry-cleaning
concessionaire at Ft. Meade, MD, where average shirt volume was
approximately 10,000 per day. We were constantly
“sampled” for excellent quality in both finishing
and washing in laundry and drycleaning and in tailoring. We
operated our own 40,000-sq.-ft. plant for over 35 years.
Stan Caplan has over 35 years experience
in his own high volume dry-cleaning, laundry and tailoring
plant and two package plants with adjoining coin-operated
laundry and drycleaning. Stan is the former chief instructor at
the International Fabricare Institute, the Southwest
Drycleaners Association and various other trade
association-sponsored schools throughout the US and courses in
Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong. Stan
offers consulting, training and engineering services in all
areas from customer service area to the boiler room since 1981.
His complete system withtotal quality management will produce
maximum efficiency, economy and product excellent quality. Stan can be reached
at 3601 Clarks Lane, Suite 307, Baltimore, MD 21215-2731,
phone/fax (410) 358-0870. His e-mail address is stancap100@aol.com.