How can one prove during an inspection that clean garments are available?

One of the main tasks of facilities departments is often to ensure that clean garments are made available to all employees at all times. The internal hygiene and garment regulations must ensure that employees use them in the right way and with the right frequency.

In case of an (health and safety) inspection, how do I show that the employer always provides clean garments? And does this mean that everyone actually wears clean garments every shift? These and more questions can only be answered with a good understanding of the rotation of the garment package.

Registration of deposits

By automating the process of garment provision and collection – several garment distributing machines are possible – each garment is registered at different points in the process. For example, when depositing in the distribution system, the date and time of the deposit is stored in the database. An up-to-date overview of the system’s contents is always available. 

In the event of an inspection, it will be possible to see exactly which garments are clean and how many of them are clean at the time. In combination with the garment regulations that employees are expected to comply with, the employer or facility organisation has created conditions for a hygienic and/or safe working method in the area of service garments.

History of the use of garments

A second question is often whether employees comply with the applicable regulations, and how this can be measured. This, too, can be answered by the data from the garments distribution system. Not only the deposit moments are registered, but also the issuance to the user and the collection after use. This means that you can see per user when they pick up and return a garment (and therefore, for example, how often they change or how long they wear the same set). 

On the other hand, the history of each garment is visible, as well as the number of washings the garment has had, for example. The use and status of the entire garment package is thus made clear on the level of individual garments. In this way, garments can be written off and taken out of rotation in good time and the inspection can be shown that all garments in circulation comply with the regulations.

Garments distribution system data for insight into hygiene 

Automating the garments process is often approached from a cost perspective or to save space. Yet, the benefits with regard to insight and hygiene might be even bigger. In short, the garments distribution system generates data that is valuable for inspection and internal compliance of the garments regulations:

  • It can be shown that every employee is issued clean garments
  • History of garments use
  • Manage the right use of garments

Benefits of the LCT systems

Automated garments distribution with LCT systems offers various benefits:

  • Hygiene*
  • Transparency: insight into garments use *
  • Cost efficiency 
  • 24/7 availability
  • Space efficiency
  • RFID

* addressed in this article

For more information, please contact us. You can also consult our website for information about the possibilities.