This article was contributed to Brandalyzer by Austine D’Souza. Austine is a co-founder of a Lonavala based laundry startup and has successfully run the business for 4 years. He works at IIT Bombay currently, and blogs on machine learning at http://www.zerosnones.net.

As seen in the previous article, the laundry machines that are used for B2C and commercial usage are very different in capacity, specifications and technique. In this article, we will discuss the various machines required to start a commercial laundry service in India.

Usually, five-star hotels as customers are not specific about which brand of machinery is being used. However, they insist in having all the following machines if you want to be their service partner. The list of machines are as follows:

• Washer extractor – This machine is used to wash clothes and to extract more than 90% of water from the linen. The advantage of this machine is it saves time and man power, only one manpower is enough instead of two separate machines. It also reduces the loading and unloading task from one machine to another. This is an efficient machine but it is subject to frequent downtime as the technology is new and not as robust as a washing machine or a hydro-extractor.
• Washing Machine – This is an alternative to washer extractor which only washes clothes and does not extract water out of it, for which a hydro-extractor is required.
• Hydro Extractor – When we only have washer machine we will need a hydro extractor to extract more than 90% of water from it, post which the clothes can go either in the dryer or flatwork ironer.
• Drying Tumbler – This is the second phase i.e. after the water is extracted from the clothes it is being sent to the dryer.
• Calendaring machine or Flatwork ironer – If the linen processed are bedsheets, pillow covers, napkins, etc it is directly passed from the washer extractor to the roll press to get a uniform press.
• Vacuum Finishing Table or Steam press – The clothes which are dried using dryer are then pressed using steam press to maintain the quality of the clothes.
• Steam generating boiler – Most steam boilers in laundries are wood based, wood is used to generate steam. One dedicated manpower is required to heat and run machines. This is a cost-efficient alternative to diesel and electricity and saves a lot of fuel cost.

While we discussed the various types of machines required in a commercial laundry, the average cost of investment required depends on the brand and the categories of machines. Some of the brands are:

• International brands
• National brands
• Private brands

International brands

International brands are highly efficient with an overall low cost of maintenance. With the same capacity as that of national brands it can deliver almost twice the output and a better quality of work. However, the cost of international brands is very high because of which these machines are available with only a few and big laundry facilities in the country. Some of the international brands are Jensen, Maestrelli, etc.

National brands

Most of the medium to big sized laundries are composed of national brands. They provide excellent return on investment. They come with a good after sales and service and have been tried and tested over a long period of time. Some of the national brands are Fabcare, Ramsons, Stefab, etc.

Private brands

These are the most widely sold and affordable machines in the market. Majority of the unorganised laundries own these machines. Any local mechanic can come and fix these machines as they are made on simple principles of machinery. However, the downside of these private brands are: they are not very efficient and the quality of processed clothes is not good. Almost all the small laundries that we see around in India consisting of two or three people in staff normally purchase these private labels.

Cheapest way of sourcing these machines 

Most of these machines have their own cost bracket and the pricing for machines within each category is almost the same. One way to source cheap machinery would be to purchase second hand machines from those facilities which started with great promise but didn’t work out and are in a dire need to sell the machines. Idle machines do not have any value as a buyer will not purchase an idle machine without testing and it takes an entire setup to test even one machine in the chain. So ideally, these laundries would like to sell off the entire set of machinery in one set to recover as much of the cost as possible or otherwise they will have to sell at scrap value.

How do small players cheat the customers, if they do?

Small players in the market cheat customers by using inferior quality products. During the client visit they show branded chemicals such as Diversey and for regular usage they will be using inferior local chemicals which damages the clothes. Also, some laundry service providers do not wash all the clothes in order to serve at a low cost.. They segregate the clothes based on how clean and dirty they are. They then skip the step 1 of washing the clothes and directly put them in the dryer to take off any smell present in the clothes.

Sourcing cost of various commercial laundry products

No	Category	Machinery	Size	Brand	Cost (INR)
1	International	Drying Tumbler	110 kg	Jensen	24,27,569
2	International	Drying Tumbler	60 kg	Jensen	10,93,865
3	International	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	800 x 2 x 3300	Jensen	97,63,753
4	International	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	800 x 3300	Jensen	77,64,412
5	International	Dry cleaning	8-10 kg	Maestrelli	14,14,000
6	International	Washer Extractor	40 kg	Jensen	13,04,535
7	International	Washer Extractor	60 kg	Jensen	18,63,621
8	National	Drying Tumbler	120 kg	Fabcare	4,85,500
9	National	Drying Tumbler	60 kg	Fabcare	2,15,000
10	National	Drying Tumbler	60 kg	Ramsons	2,35,000
11	National	Drying Tumbler	60 kg	Stefab	2,31,625
12	National	Hydro Extractor	25 kg	Fabcare	1,14,000
13	National	Hydro Extractor	50 kg	Fabcare	2,99,500
14	National	Hydro Extractor	30 kg	Ramsons	1,40,000
15	National	Hydro Extractor	50 kg	Ramsons	2,89,000
16	National	Hydro Extractor	30 kg	Stefab	1,23,675
17	National	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	305 x 1829 mm	Fabcare	4,49,500
18	National	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	508 x 3048 mm	Fabcare	8,25,500
19	National	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	600 x 3000 mm	Fabcare	7,20,000
20	National	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	400 x 1600 mm	Ramsons	3,80,000
21	National	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	600 x 3000 mm	Ramsons	8,75,000
22	National	Industrial Flat Work Ironer	380 x 2000 mm	Stefab	5,30,825
23	National	Vacuum Finishing Table		Fabcare	31,000
24	National	Vacuum Finishing Table		Ramsons	35,000
25	National	Vacuum Finishing Table		Stefab	37,825
26	National	Washer Extractor	120 kg	Fabcare	17,60,500
27	National	Washer Extractor	30 kg	Fabcare	5,12,500
28	National	Washer Extractor	60 kg	Fabcare	9,60,500
29	National	Washer Extractor	30 kg	Ramsons	4,52,000
30	National	Washer Extractor	60 kg	Ramsons	9,70,000
31	National	Washer Extractor	30 kg	Stefab	5,38,650
32	National	Washing Machine	120 kg	Fabcare	5,40,500
33	National	Washing Machine	30 kg	Fabcare	2,65,000
34	National	Washing Machine	60 kg	Fabcare	3,93,500
35	National	Washing Machine	30 kg	Ramsons	2,81,250
36	National	Washing Machine	50 kg	Ramsons	2,79,000
37	National	Washing Machine	75 kg	Ramsons	3,65,000
38	National	Washing Machine	60 kg	Stefab	3,08,125
39	National	Boiler	300 kg	Thermax	6,52,000
40	Semi National	Boiler	100 kg	Noetag	2,70,000
41	Semi National	Boiler	200 kg	Noetag	3,71,500
42	Semi National	Boiler	300 kg	Noetag	4,14,500

Hope this article has provided a good idea of the various machines required and the costing of the same to start a laundry business in India.

Thank You.