Fusion Bundlers from Mosca Reduce Re-Work at Mickey’s Linen
“Well, our trash cans are no longer filled with strap,” said Ruben Ibarra, maintenance manager at Mickey’s Linen during a recent visit to the Chicago, IL based company. Mickey’s Linen is one of the largest family owned and operated uniform and linen rental companies in the Midwest, currently operating in five states, employing over 400 team members, and serving 7000 customers. Not bad for a company that started in the basement of the founder’s home in 1930.
Mickey’s cleans, presses and bundles its rental restaurant linens – napkins, tablecloths, towels, staff wear, and more in the two West Addison Street locations in Chicago, which also houses the company’s corporate offices. MedClean, the company’s textile rental and cleaning processing for the healthcare industry is housed in other locations. The bundles from the West Addison Street location are loaded into large wheeled totes which are then loaded onto Mickey’s trucks and delivered around bustling Chicago, famous for its restaurants.
Mickey’s tag line is ‘Professional Service. Personal Touch’. However, when it comes to laundry bundles, it only made sense to touch them once. Broken bundles from failed strap seals needed to be re-strapped and occasionally sent back to the beginning of the line to be reprocessed. Besides picking up the errant straps and emptying the trash, there were labor and materials costs to consider. Loose straps on the floor can also be slip hazards so there’s more to the labor aspect than just rework. Management made the decision that older bundlers with outdated technology weren’t worth repairing any longer.
Wieslaw Gebultowicz, production manager at the facility and one of the decision makers involved in purchasing new Mosca Fusion strapping machines to replace the outmoded banders from another manufacturer, is happy with his decision. So much so he is recommending that they replace similar systems in their other facilities with Mosca bundlers.
The Fusion is Mosca’s entry level, operator assisted strapping machine designed to be competitive with lower quality strappers while featuring many components of Mosca’s advanced machines. The Fusion was introduced to the market in 2012, and is capable of operating at cycle speeds of up to 50/minute. The bander features a Mosca Standard 3 heat-seal strapping head known to stand up to fibers and debris, and that features precise strap tension control, energy saving, and wear-free DC drive brushless motor technology. Strap tension is controlled electronically and ranges from 0 to 50 pounds.
Third generation family owner and manager Chris Brown heard about Mosca bundlers from his production management team. The team researched strapping equipment lines and chose Mosca. According to Brown, “I’d definitely recommend Mosca equipment. There’s been a significant impact – in a positive way, on the maintenance department. They have a lot more time for preventive maintenance on other equipment now.” Brown purchased the systems from servicing Mosca Distributor Uni-Pac Equipment Co., owned by Jim McMahon.
“The Fusions are great systems and there’s not much beyond plugging them in during installation. The castors are well made and you basically roll them into place. We’ve placed Fusions not only into laundry applications like Mickey’s but also in mailing, graphic arts and some general packaging applications,” says McMahon, a Mosca distributor for over thirty-two years. “Mosca strapping machines are the most reliable systems I’ve ever worked on in the over forty years I’ve been in field service. A new self installation video from EAM-Mosca gives easy instructions on how to load strap and adjust tension settings on the Fusion, which is great for new employees,” he continued.
Machine operators push the bundles across the Fusion’s stainless steel tabletop and press a foot pedal for cycle start. The Fusion also can be outfitted with a photo sensor option which cycles the machine when the beam is broken. The bundler is kept in place with two lockable casters. Once per week, maintenance employees lift the hinged tabletop, and blow out any dust that has accumulated. To move the Fusions into other locations, employees simply unlock the casters and wheel the machine off.
The reliability and secure seals provided by Mosca Fusions have catapulted the bundlers to the front of the entry level market where they compete with lesser quality systems at about the same price point. According to Ibarra, “The Fusions have certainly made my life a little easier!”
EAM-Mosca Corporation provides high-performance strapping system solutions to a variety of industries, including food, graphic arts, mailing, fulfillment, logistics, corrugated, wood, and other industrial or consumer goods. We combine innovative equipment with strapping materials manufactured to maximize machine performance and customer support programs that help our customers to meet their performance and productivity goals.
To learn more about any of EAM-Mosca’s other productivity enhancing strapping systems, please call us at 800-456-3420, or email us at info@eammosca.com. You can also connect with EAM-Mosca on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/EAMMoscaCorp), Twitter (www.twitter.com/EAMMoscaCorp), and Facebook and LinkedIn via the links above.