22 Jun Intelligent textiles at the service of the hospitality sector

Companies in the hospitality sector are committed to innovation in order to keep abreast of the latest technological advances. This includes introducing intelligent textiles to verify and trace items. This requires the assembly of a three-part RFID system: TAGs, software and hardware.

In particular, a TAG is a chip incorporated into a textile item in a kind of “sequin” that has a built-in antenna. This is like the DNA of each textile item, since each of them has a number or code that identifies it with a client. TAGs have evolved and feature two options: tag and label-tag. These chips, which use RFID-UHF technology, must be resistant to the process of industrial washing and the chemicals used in it, as well as to the high temperatures of ironing.

As far as hardware is concerned, the system consists of an arch: a booth, where items get weighed and read massively; a special equipment for reading packages; and a PDA.

The software, finally, is mainly in charge of controlling the entry and exit of items. Among its functionalities are: easy identifying, locating, tracing and managing of items; seamless data integration with the company’s management system; report generation by clients or items; error detection in each of the processes; and traceability management of each of the textile items, which makes it possible to control loss, wear, and tear.

An ideal system for hoteliers and launderers

This intelligent textiles system is, therefore, ideal for the relationship between hoteliers and launderers. Its operation is simple: Resuinsa, the supplier of intelligent textiles with built-in TAGs, provides the textile items to the hotel. The hotel receives the items, carries out its inventory, and uploads the information to the cloud, where it is stored and managed.

The establishment sends the textiles to the laundry, which can use this technology to upload the relevant information to the cloud. By doing so, the system also allows stock to be counted and monitored with a lower investment in time and personnel.

If the system for intelligent textiles is in the hotel and the hotel manages the washing itself, it can still use the system to manage washing done through laundries that do not have the system or to wash the textile items in its own laundry. This technology also makes it possible to verify and trace textile items.

Additionally, hotels can suffer losses that are not caused by the process between the establishment and the laundry and that can distort the database: guests who take items or employees who steal them. A couple of options have, therefore, been created to check such losses: an anti-theft rug equipped with an RFID reader and a rooftop antenna capable of reading spaces higher than 3.5 meters.

In the end, this is a small investment that provides countless advantages to the hospitality sector, offering it what it needs in a complete, integrated package. A series of benefits that, thanks to Resuinsa’s commitment to R+D+i, contribute to the hospitality sector’s daily expansion and help it improve the quality of its processes. This type of technology must be certified and endorsed by prestigious institutes and technological organisations so that customers know that behind everything lies real and guaranteed control and research.