Cross-ordering gives new life to textiles
The return of one of our garments from a customer is a normal part of our products’ service lifecycle. The customer’s employee may have changed roles, the summer working season has ended, customers’ requirements for a type of garment may have changed, or our contract with the customer has ended. Many of these returned garments still meet our strict quality standards and can be given a new life by assigning them to another employee of the same or different customer.
Cross-ordering is one of our key internal processes. It supports maximizing the use of our already in service garments by sharing them between our laundries, even those from different business units or countries. During 2020, we transferred more than 230,000 garments between our laundries via our cross-order process, and a systematic implementation of the process was extended to include several of our European subsidiaries. The cross-order process continues to be actively developed to further leverage its measurable benefits in efficiency and sustainability.