The CLEAN Show brings together laundry operators from all over the country and the world. Out team had real conversations about real challenges faced by hard-working commercial laundry owners, industrial laundry operators, laundry company managers, and more.
Whether operating a small commercial laundry or managing millions of pounds per week across multiple facilities, one message came through loud and clear: Labor is harder to find. Production needs to grow. Automation is no longer optional.
At Felins, we listened closely to what attendees had to say. Here’s a breakdown of the top pain points laundry businesses are experiencing and how strategic automation can relieve pressure, protect margins, and unlock growth.
🧺 1. Growing Pains, Labor Shortages & Rising Wages
What we heard:
“We’re lucky to find someone who shows up every day. But we can’t afford to keep hiring more hands just to wrap towels. We’re growing and need to increase production but we can’t afford full automation yet.”
Manual bundling and shrink wrapping is one of the most repetitive and physically taxing jobs in laundry operations. In many regions, rising minimum wages and competitive hiring markets have made it difficult to scale production without ballooning labor costs. However, for some companies who go through growing pains – they’re looking for relief but not ready for full automation yet.
The fix:
Investing in stage-1 automation reduces dependency on higher headcounts and injury risk while still being reasonably budget-friendly. Systems like our semi-automatic TP-100 shrink wrappers still require an operator but improves their bundles per minute. Workers can move faster by letting the machine shrink wrap the bundle instead of bundling it by hand. This upgrade drastically cuts manual touchpoints, making your team more productive, without increasing payroll.
🔄 2. Production Bottlenecks After Folding
What we heard:
“We spent all this money on high-speed folders, but the finished bundles get backed up because we’re still wrapping by hand.”
Post-folding bottlenecks are one of the most common weak links in laundry workflows. You can have the best folding equipment in the world but if the bundles aren’t being wrapped and moved efficiently, you’re bleeding time and productivity.
“Our employees can’t keep up and when you rush – your bundles are more prone to falling apart and needing to be redone,” says a laundry owner, “This costs us even more time and effects our output.”
The fix:
Our TP-300 Shrink Wrapping System integrates directly with automated folding lines, enabling hands-free bundling at 1,200+ bundles per hour. This means folded laundry keeps flowing, without backup, delays, or extra labor.
📉 3. Downtime Is Too Risky for High-Volume Facilities
What we heard:
“We’re doing over 400k pounds a week. If one machine goes down, we’re in trouble.”
When you’re processing high volumes, equipment redundancy becomes critical. One missed day of production due to downtime can cause ripple effects that hurt customer satisfaction and bottom-line performance.
The fix:
Facilities processing 400,000+ pounds/week are increasingly turning to (2) TP-300 systems. Why? With two machines, one can carry the load if the other needs service providing business continuity without sacrificing throughput.
💸 4. Sticker Shock and the Cost of Waiting
What we heard:
“We love the equipment, but we’re not ready to invest yet.”
“We’re just gathering ideas for now.”
We understand. Automation can feel like a big leap, especially for small or growing laundries. But as many attendees realized during CLEAN 2025, the real question isn’t whether you can afford it, it’s whether you can afford not to.
The fix:
Think in terms of cost per pound. When you hit ~250,000+ pounds per week, the cost of manual labor especially in high-wage areas, starts to outweigh the cost of automation.
That “magic number” varies by region and team size, but once you pass it, you’re losing money daily by delaying the investment.
Waiting also creates stagnancy.
These changes are not easy – moving from four employees manually wrapping linens to one semi-auto system means reassigning staff, retraining, and changing workflows. That can feel disruptive, even if it saves money. People stick with the familiar until they’re forced to act.
Managing change is hard for many companies who have remained stagnant for too long, the most dangerous mindset being “…but this is the way we’ve always done it.” This actually hinders company growth. The longer you maintain current processes, the harder it will be later for your employees and team to adapt.
Investing sooner than later, and creating a culture of continuous improvement, will make it easier for your company to implement large scale projects and changes.
🔍 Not Sure What’s Right for You?
Whether you’re doing 1,200 pounds per week or 1.2 million, we can help assess your volumes, workflows, and ROI benchmarks to determine when it makes sense to upgrade.
From our semi-automatic TP-100 model to fully integrated, conveyor-based TP-300 shrink wrap systems, we’re here to guide your journey toward smarter, safer, and more scalable packaging.
👋 Let’s Keep the Conversation Going
If you visited our booth at the CLEAN show — thank you! We loved meeting so many forward-thinking laundry professionals. If we didn’t get a chance to connect or you want to dive deeper into how automation fits your business, we’d love to continue the conversation.
👉 Reach out to our team for a free quote and explore solutions to your pain points with Felins solutions!
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