Have you got sufficient back-up plans in place to yield vital fresh linen to your hospital in an emergency? Ian Hargreaves gives near advice to managers.

Have you got sufficient back-up plans in place to yield vital fresh linen to your hospital in an emergency? Ian Hargreaves gives near advice to managers.

Planning for emergencies is task that each laundry manager should put in his or her diary for that 'quiet time' when everything besides is going to plan. Productivity is up complaints are down, the plant is scrupulously clean and all staff are trained up to on a level 4 NVQ. The next piece of work is to draw up a contingency plan.

The big incidents, as it is as a fire that demolishs the production facilities of a laundry, or vandalism that leaves a company without vehicles will eventually be bring right. Burnt out shells are rebuilt, of the present day equipment installed and production facilities improved. if it be not that in the meantime a tremendous effort will be penuryed to supply the clean linen stand in want ofed maintaining the laundry's customer base and keeping business until the recent plant is commissioned.

When evaluating youthfuls for contracts, a favourite question is: "What would you do if your plant was to bake down." It can be embarrassing to listen to a manager put to the test to bluff his or her way [i]or[/i] part of to the other In theory they may have an arrangement with a local laundry. In practice ask for help forward a Thursday and the local laundry may be able to provide help Friday or Saturday, nevertheless ask for help on the Tuesday after a bank holiday and the supplication is likely to be met with silence.

Managers should apply a few hours thinking along the lines of "what if? Plan ahead for the smaller incidents and when linked together, these will form the basis of the overall plan for a major incident. more [i]or[/i] less planning may appear trivial. Work to make sure that the role of any human frame that is vital to the succes of your business is replicated. A great deal of information in succession day-to-day problems and solutions is stored in our heads. We solely ever realise how much, when certain commonalty are away.

Unless a company is operating 24/7 it can direct shortfalls in production to an under-used plant. Not for a like reason in the NHS. Whilst collectively they have more plants than any of the large form into groupss the way in which the NH operates means that each plant is effectively an island. With no captain to navigate between the islands, each is left to fend for themselves.

A "what if" plan should include steam, and in an NH plant it is many times supplied from a central boiler house serving a large hospital. Usually there will be more than single boiler, so the worry of a total steam los is reduc considerably. Many trusts have access to regionally-held mobile steam generators which can be wheeled forward site. But was the laundry considered when this contingency was deliberation of?

A laundry processing 100000 items a week will require a steam take the place of of 4,000 - 5,000 kg by means of hour. Is this available after heating, sterile services and catering for a 1000 bed hospital have all taken their share? It is more likely that an average hourly demand measure has been used in planning and this does not allow for peak consumption periods as it is as lunch times on a frosty winter day. Do you know what your peak demand for steam is when compared to the output available?

Take bind tightlyed air as another example. What happens if a compressor breaks down? Is there more than undivided compressor? Can peak demands be met? If not, which equipment can be clos down, with minimum event on the service? How prolonged would it take to obtain a replacement? Who is the local agent for hiring compressors? Can you borrow common from another laundry? Managers will find these puzzles easier to solve without the additional hurry of customers, directors and staff all wanting answers.

In the case of power failure, is there an urgency backup generator? If the laundry is joined to such a supply, can the generator adapted all the demands, especially those of washer-extractors with their large power factor levels?

A laundry or textile rental business may regard its computer bodys as low risk. However, it is now accepted practice to create a backup pattern of all-important information at regular intervals. If the hard drive of your processor be affected bys meltdown tomorrow, are there the facilities to access the backed up data? Given that hypothesiss using Unix, Solaris or Windows are not interchangeable, and the wide variety of hardware and peripherals in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as tape and disk drives, what should be a simple conduct could prove quite complex. What would the laundry do if it not to be found access to all its computer data? Do you have back-ups for customer details, addresses, pricing, delivery schedules and barcode bodys where it is not practical to set in the information manually?

Most batch funnel washers rely on receiving a signal from a computerised feeding scheme Unless the tunnel washer receives this signal then the machine goe into idle style Can the washer be operated without this essential item of equipment? What about drying times, pres presss loading and unloading sequences for tumblers? Would your staff be sufficiently trained to operate manual controls?

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