Making 12,000 Calls Per Week : A Busy Fleet of Laundry Vans.
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DEMONSTRATION of the axiom 1/that machines used for the work of outside collection and delivery should be as modern and as efficient as internal profit-calming machinery is provided by the activities of the London and Liverpool Steam Laundry Co., of Liverpool, which is just completing the change over to Morris vans of the 1-ton type.
Within recent years there have been great changes in the laundering industry, and, instead of a multiplicity of receiving depots and shops, there is now, in all the big centres of population, a handful of factory-laundries which maintain a direct service of collections and deliveries between the customer and the factory. The usual method of working is to devote the earlier days of the week to calling on customers for the week's washing, and on the later days of the week to deliver the goods after they have passed through the cleansing and finishing processes. In this way the work is fairly well distributed over the whole week.
On a busy day of almost 32 working hours the vans in the service of the London and Liverpool Steam Laundry Co., each carrying a staff of three men, will, by carefully organized working, collect as many as 3,000 parcels. Considering that halts are so frequent in this class of business, this performance is remarkable, but as, in same districts, the addresses at which calls have to be made are in close contiguity much work may be done in a very short time, Furthermore, encouragement is given to the collecting staff by awarding bonuses on She volume of work brought in. The addresses of each round are tabulated in books which are carried by the driver.
The motor fleet of the London and Liverpool Steam Laundry Co. makes about 12,000 calls each week—almost equally divided between erllections and deliveries—in an area of . roughly 8 miles radius from the Luton Grove laundry. Each van covers a mileage of about 200 per ur,...11.