Wherever large quantities of workwear and other textiles have to be washed on a regular basis, washable textile ID transponders with UHF technology help to control and classify laundry.
And, on its 30th anniversary, Datamars, supplier of high-performance laundry identification solutions, has released two innovative tracking systems which will provide greater efficiencies for laundries operated by healthcare providers.
One of the two new products is the new Ultra High Frequency (UHF) OPEN TUNNEL, a plug-and-play system compatible with virtually any conveyor belt.
The tunnel reads stacks of folded textiles with unprecedented accuracy and is totally transparent to laundry operations.
The second innovation is the new UHF PORTAL PLUS that represents a new approach to read moving trolleys with no compromise on reading accuracy or stray reads.
While UHF technology reads hundreds of tags per second and can deal with reading distances up to 8m, the technology is subject to signal reflection.
Signal reflection can lead to stray tag readings which can result to incorrect billing, inventory or delivery.
Usually the solution to the stray read problem is to use metal-shielding in order to confine the UHF field inside the reading system, like a UHF cabin or UHF closed tunnel. These systems are highly accurate, but tend to slow down the laundry flow as they are adding an extra step to the process.
The two new In Motion UHF systems overcomes this weakness by allowing the tunnel and portal to read tags while the trolley or the stack of laundry are moving, with no compromise to stray reads.
The new UHF Portal Plus combines the reading performances of a cabin with the ease of operation of a portal.
Thanks to its capability to filter stray reads, Datamars UHF Portal Plus can be used to read carts packed with clean stacks of laundry.
The UHF Portal Plus can read up to 500 pieces at regular walking speed. It is the perfect solution to read a large number of clean laundry but can also be used in any area were bulk reading is needed without slowing down the flow.
The new UHF Open Tunnel has been designed to work on virtually any laundry conveyor belt.
And, as the tunnel is completely open it doesn’t interfere with the flow of linen and its operation is transparent to the laundry process. Stray reads are filtered out by software algorithms.
The tunnel also automatically adapts to different conveyor speeds. Built from lightweight aluminium and stainless steel, it resists the harshest laundry environments.
Datamars this year also drastically improved its UHF Cabinets reading speed, halving the time required by previous generation.
We know laundries work on a very-tight schedule where every second counts. A few months ago, we announced the fastest UHF cabin, which can read up to 1,000 tags in just 3.5 seconds. We are now going one step further with the release of the ‘In Motion’ reading systems
Now Datamars UHF cabinets take just 3.5 seconds on average to read a trolley containing 1,000 items, so a laundry utilising the UHF cabinets at full capacity, will gain almost one hour per shift making it more efficient.
“Last year we released the FT401, our smallest UHF Laundry Chip ever, with the goal of making the tag completely unnoticeable when placed inside the textile,” said Julien Buros, product and dervices director at Datamars Textile ID.
“We are following the same approach with reading systems that we design so they can be smoothly integrated into the work flow, without interfering with the laundry process.
“We aim to make the technology as ‘invisible’ as possible to the user.”
He added: “We know laundries work on a very-tight schedule where every second counts. A few months ago, we announced the fastest UHF cabin, which can read up to 1,000 tags in just 3.5 seconds. We are now going one step further with the release of the ‘In Motion’ reading systems that are able to accurately scan moving trolleys or stack of laundry.”
