FEEDERS, FOLDERS AND IRONERS Reaching the end of the line in style


There are new beginnings at the end of the line with significant innovations that will appeal to businesses looking for better production numbers and efficiencies


t has become glaringly obvious over recent years that feeders and folders have benefited immensely from the advent of robotics teamed with artificial intelligence. Inwatec was, and still is, a major pioneer in this area and other companies have also had a big influence on developments. Inwatec, self-styled ‘laundry nerds’, first came to mainstream industry attention in 2016 at Texcare International in Frankfurt.


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Texcare International 2024, eight years on from the last edition of the show because of Covid, ably demonstrated how all things AI have developed exponentially. It is a fair bet that The Clean Show in Orlando in August will reprise a lot of the developments as it will be the first time North Americans who did not make the trek to Frankfurt will be able to inspect them first hand.


From sorting and feeding in the soiled area, fishing out foreign objects, to feeding the ironers and then folding and packing linen and towels for immediate dispatch, the industrial laundry is well on the way to becoming fully automated. Maybe not just now, but with the frenetic pace of change of the past few years, this is now in the foreseeable future. And it is not just flat linen that is being advantaged – uniforms and workwear are also getting the streamlined treatment. Inwatec continues to impress with its vision and, now a part of Jensen Group, the nerds are well and truly in the fold of the mainstream industrial textile care movement. According to Jensen’s Nicolas Gostony, speaking shortly after Texcare 2024: “Exciting innovations on display were our range of flexible towel feeding systems, including manual, automated and even fully automated solutions: In the automated solution, a THOR.Towel separated and transferred towels to an operator who can speed up the feeding process by up to 83%, achieving 1100 pieces/hour (PPOH) compared to 600 PPOH


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BEST PRACTICE: Kannegiesser believes its SynchroPro is its best ever


in a fully manual process. The THOR. Towel feeder is particularly popular in Japan, where workforce is scarce, and this exhibition marks the solution’s first appearance at an exhibition. The BLIZZ robot for fully automated towel feeding comes with a redesign that allows for more buffer inside the machine, ensuring a stable performance throughout the day – handling 500 small and large pieces in mixed batches.


A significant highlight at the booth were the three state-of-the art flatwork finishing lines, all connected to an impressive Jenway transport and storage system. The Jenway conveyor system equipped with track-and-trace and various sorting and eject technologies connected three ironer lines with Express Pro (see case study, pages 26-27) and KliQ feeders followed by Jensen’s new Silverline folder with reversing conveyors and space-saving inline stackers. Demonstrations at the booth showed a peak production of 2000 sheets per hour in two lanes on the new Express Pro feeder thanks to four feeding stations for fast corner-less feeding. According to Kannegiesser, the variety


of textiles to be processed is constantly increasing. quality and flexibility requirements are increasing. At the same time, more intense competition requires the minimisation of production costs. The SynchroPro series will adapt to all these challenges, it says: “The system combines performance, process stability and quality to create a perfectly harmonious feeding process without compromise.” This sounds perfect, so how could the successful feeders of the Synchro series be further improved, one has to ask? The answer, says Kanegiesser, is SwiftCare. The term ‘Swift’ in this case refers to the improved net performance of the SynchroPro and ‘Care’ complements the care, handling and precision of each individual laundry item.


The Synchro clamp enables reliable fast spreading, releasing and depositing of a wide variety of articles. Thick or thin, small or large, polyester or 100% cotton? It doesn’t matter. The large, wide-open clamping area defines the process entry and is fast and gentle on the linen. Servotronic is what Kanegiesser calls the combination of servo electronics, servo


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