It is one thing to have all the information and the controls at your fingertips.  Ask any airplane pilot.  It is another to quickly and efficiently take into account all of the variables required for a smooth flight.  The airplane’s auto-pilot takes into account all of the knowledge and information available to make the best decisions, effortlessly.  The decision-making skills of the best pilots are incorporated into the controls so that choices can be made on the “fly” at the speed of a computer each time they are required. 

In the same manner, laundry managers are asked or ask their personnel to make fairly significant decisions that greatly affect production.  In the best laundries, the power of the equipment and personnel are optimized to produce

exactly the linen that is required to ship that day or that week.  These decisions are systematized to provide parameters for production.  What is washed or even sorted is often determined on a daily or hourly basis by well-intentioned staff who cannot possibly take into account all the variables required to make the best possible decision.  Introducing Rail-Pro Auto-Pilot – a sophisticated software program that does more than just report on status and inform you when something malfunctions.  It does more than just inform you as to the productivity of an individual worker or system.  E-Tech software engineers have developed a program that takes all of that information into account as it sequences the proper linen at the proper time through the laundry for optimum production.

Managers now do what mangers should do and that is managing people.  As productivity increases, the equipment adjusts the delivery of goods to utilize this new capacity.   

This addition to the already dependable and reliable RailPro software extends its capabilities by making what was done manually, automatic.  Required data is received in many ways.  Today, we are communicating through an XML protocol with major equipment dealers.  By instantaneously receiving production data from the shipping and billing system, ironers, dryers, washers, chemical delivery, etc, Auto-Pilot will make decisions about which items are washed next to optimize the production possible through the laundry given that set of parameters.  Of course if some of these parameters are not available “on the fly”, they can be input at significant intervals.  (i.e. The shipping and billing system daily requirements can be downloaded as it changes)   

The system works best with an automated monorail system but that is not a requirement as it can still report what the optimum sequence would be.  E-Tech engineers have identified several “rules” that will used to sequence work through the laundry. (see sample screen below.)