For the coming period, we will present you week by week, the most outstanding PTC showcases that were officially nominated for The Global Best Practices Awards Program 2018. The profiles of these companies are also present in the WOPCOM platform, which you can access here.
GCS BIH77 (Blanchisserie Interhospitalière) (France)
Excellent laundry service for French hospitals
BIH77 is a laundry company that opened its doors on 1 April 2013 under the impulse of 6 hospitals of the district Seine and Marne to regroup their linen function allowing an investment in modern equipment and at the cutting edge of technology. The company is located in the industrial zone in the north of Meaux (France). The laundry currently processes 24 tons of linen per day, mainly hospital and household linen, while maximum capacity is 30 tons / day.
BIH77 is a social company that values its staff and is willing to offer changes to people in precarious situations. It has several training programs to improve staff-quality. Recently a partnership agreement with the SCOFOB was established on opening a training center laundry. In recent years BIH77 has taken a number of actions in terms of hiring, with the integration of people in precarious situations and / or disabled persons. Working locations have been adjusted to these people to enable them to do their jobs. This resulted in winning a prize in the MNH contest on hiring people with disabilities.
Maintaining and improving service quality is very important for BIH77. Processes of constant validation of the practice of RABC standards and current procedure for ISO 9001 are maintained. Monthly bacteriological samples are being taken and are also passed to the member institutions (customers) to keep them informed on the current level of service. Bacteriological samples are also taken 2 times a year by an outside company to maintain objectivity.
A sustainable company in various ways
BIH77 has taken numerous measures to improve sustainability. Optimizing energy efficiency as well as limiting the use of environmental unfriendly chemicals is on top of the agenda of the managing board. Some examples are research on the adaptation of detergent at low temperature washing and recovery heat exchanges.
All water to be used is treated by osmosis to obtain water quality adapted to the needs of the plant, limiting the use of chemicals and improve rendering “softness” on the machine. The green roof on top of the BIH77-building has a regulating effect on the temperature of the building as well as action on pollution and humidity.
There are several heat exchanging systems – heat release of water is recovered to heat the wash water – and off course there’s recovery of water. Maximising efficiency while even raising service quality is also achieved by other operational measures like arranging optimization of wash loads by grouping them into categories. And off course there are mainstream investments like light sensors, solar panels and low consumption bulbs that have been established.
Eye for social environment
BIH77 as being a social company also has invested in measurements that provide the sustainability (wellbeing) of its entire staff. There has been, for example, an acoustic study with establishment of individual equipment to each employee (hearing protection) depending on the position of decibels (in relation to occupational medicine). Furthermore the establishment of 6400 m² has been built with 77 windows that have helped position the workstations depending on the location of windows allowing natural light.
BIH 77 has partnerships in order to reduce waste and promote recycling pallets, paper and cardboard. The recycling actions are an ecological but also an economic and even social issue. These partnerships enable the creation of integration projects with the creation of jobs for people in precarious situations or handicaps.
BIH77 values its employees
Always in contact with its customers
Meeting the customers’ demands is important for BIH77. These demands are subject to constant changing nowadays. Firstly the company is a member of national URBH and URBH Ile de France to exchange with staff, member institutions and suppliers on professional practices and technological developments. The membership leads to an integrated way of business improvement. Yearly there are also several customer meetings to communicate on professional practices, technical developments and the results of BIH77.
To serve specific customers there is also transmission of numerous data to all member institutions and evaluation/ adaptation of the data according to their needs. There has been creation of the BIH77-website in order to further announce the business but also enable members to retrieve documents (reports, notices, balance sheets). This has led to customers being much better informed but also significant reduction of mailings and consumption in paper. This site also allows patients referents/families as well as lingerie workers in hospitals to find lost objects when sending the laundry.
BIH77 has evolved its services with the assumption of responsibility for the provision of treatment to treatment of dirty laundry on delivery to the service and even to the individual patient.
Innovation is a constant process. Although its indicators are superior to national standards (referring the Angers database), BIH77 keeps on conducting actions to reduce treatment costs while maintaining optimal levels of hygiene and sanitation.
Innovation is a constant process