Friday morning’s program put the members of the Chinese delegation in front of the biggest tests so far: the group assignments about the practical assignments and the learning process during the week, followed by the final exam. This resulted in 20 “Masters in PTC: 15 for Retail Textile Cleaning and 5 for Industrial Textile Services. This excellent result was rewarded with a special cake featuring a picture of the castle and all participants. The Master in PTC Certificate enables further preparations for the International CERCLEAN®
The long-awaited results and the new 20 Masters in PTC were revelaed:
- Ms. ZHENG XIAO JUAN
- Ms. FENG JIN NA
- Mr. CHENG XI
- Mr. ZOU YONG BO
- Ms. WEI WEI
- Ms. ZHANG HAN LIN
- Ms. DAI HAI LI
- Ms. KANG LI HONG
- Ms. ZHANG MENG WEI
- Ms. QUAN JING
- Mr. FENG SU PING
- Mr. FU HUAN HUAN
- Mr. ZHANG LEI
- Mr. ZHANG JING YU
- Mr. CHEN BAO FA
- Mr. XU JING LIANG
- Mr. CAO SHUAI JUN
- Mr. SUN BO
- Mr. KONG XIAN HONG
- Mr. LIU SHUAI
All the new Masters in PTC received their certificates.
Visit Lavans. More than a family company!
Once certified, let’s hit the road and visit more outstanding companies. First stop on Friday’s afternoon’s tour – LAVANS, an extraordinary business that is truly run as a family business, regarding all employees as part of the family.
What makes Lavans so special? The company perceives its human resources as a genuine unique selling point towards their customers, with self-steering teams and an overall average employment time of 11 years.
Together with 200 employees, the company services 10.000 customers from various sizes in the industry & trade segment with workwear, mats, hygiene products & cleaning wipers.
Besides the laundry facility, Lavans has 3 other locations for distribution of goods in The Netherlands as well as the north of Belgium.
Elis; Visiting the International leader worldwide
The second (and last) visit on Friday’s agenda took the Chinese delegation to Helmond, to visit the new site built by Berendsen which was taken over by Elis in June, 2017. This plant was just opened two weeks ago and offered the group an excellent insight of the “state of the art” in laundry technology.
Elis originates from France but the company is the world’s largest laundry multinational with >440 facilities in Europe and Latin America. In 2016 the company had a turnover of 3+ billion euro serving over 400.000 clients.
The company has a clear strategy for growth through acquisitions and organic growth. The location is interesting because of its lean processing with seven simple product lines, keeping customers together per batch so the sorting is kept to a minimum, as explained by Mr. Kazimir Hermans, General Manager of ELIS plant in Helmond.
Beside the factory tour, Mr. Hermans focused on Business Intelligence system that improves the decision making process on strategic, tactical and operational level and also on the system’s application in the following fields: customer overview, customer portfolio management, KPIs and cost calculation.
The outstanding concept of Lean processing & Trias Energetica
The facility has a State of the Art sustainability installation. Mr. Jaap Reinders, CEO of TBR Energy Solutions showed the installation to the visitors and explained the principles of Trias Energetica and the results thereof.
1) Use an energy efficient machinery park
2) Reduce demand, re-use energy and implement green energy sources
3) Use renewables and apply fossil fuels as efficiently as possible
The saving potential of the systems based on this concept is spectacular. Mr. Reinders presented several case studies with the solutions implemented by TBR in UK, France, Belgium and The Netherlands, where the achieved energy savings were up to 75%.
…and the week ends in style!
Returnind to CINET headquarters, the Chinese guests were invited to visit a state-of-the-art farm and then enjoy the amazing local wine in a lovely vineyard in Ophemert.
Saturday morning, the delegation went to visit some famous Dutch tourist attractions and enjoyed a relaxing weekend.
18 June: CLA delegation to visit G. van der Kleij; the largest hospitality laundry in Europe
On the last day of their visit, the Chinese delegation visited the wonderful laundry facility of the family-run business G. van der Kleij. This company originates from 1859 and meanwhile the 6th generation (Mr. Daan van der Kleij) has started to work in the business. The visit started with a master class lecture from Jensen on the latest innovations in industrial laundry focused on robotics, smart material handling and digitization. Both the lecture and company tour (all Jensen equipment) where hosted and supported by Ilja Buunk, NL representative of Jensen.
‘Kwaliteitsstomerij Caronette’; Cleaning for the rich-and-famous in the Netherlands
Last stop and company visit was done in Baarn at the marvelous high-end dry cleaning shop ‘Kwaliteitsstomerij Caronette’ in Baarn. This shop is ran by owner Mr. Roel van Rixoort and his wife and daughter. Every piece (of the 150-170 per day in total) goes through the hands of Mr. van Rixoort personally, which results in an impeccable quality level at high-end pricing. The quality level is acknowledged by the rich-and-famous as this dry cleaning business also cleans for TV production companies apart from the regional community. The shop is just 100 m2 with a chic, modern looking front-end in the middle of the city centre in Baarn.
End of a splashing week!
The first phase of the Chinese delegation’s outstanding journey from best practices to certification ends here, but more developments will follow in the coming period as a result of the cooperation between CINET and China Laundry Association.
