Blog Entry 1. Internship at VIC Textiltvätt AB in Kållered!

Hi everyone,
My name is Emma and I am at the moment doing my internship at Vic Textiltvätt AB.
VIC is a family owned dry-cleaning and laundry business that puts a lot of focus and efforts into the aspects of washing but also finding environmentally and sustainable solutions. The company was founded in 1964. VIC has an impressive customer base, with some of their major clients including hotels, food chains and fashion clothing stores to just mention a few.
So, VIC wash, clean and dry-clean for both private customers and companies from all over the Gothenburg region.

When I started my internship, I was given the responsibility to manage an order of about 8000 pieces of shirts from ICA.
My duties included unpacking all the shirts, removing the price tag and organize them in accordance with their size (then save for later to re-tag each shirt), ensure that the shirts were washed properly or ozone treated depending on the condition of the shirts, then when dried, putting the price tag back on, then pack all the shirts down in boxes, making them ready to be delivered.
Orders like this one, is interesting and may seem quite easy at a first glance. However, in reality, it is quite much work, as it requires you to think about small details, details that in the end can make a difference in how long it takes for you to have all the shirts ready for delivery.
Because in the end, the customer (in this case it was ICA) often wants delivery as soon as possible. ICA knew of course from when VIC received the shirts, that it wouldn’t be possible to have all the 8000 shirts cleaned and ready in a week.
Whenever I work with an order (or school project as well for that matter) I tend to always start off by visualising or mind-mapping the whole process, so I can better get an overview of what needs to be done.
For this order I knew that the sizes were marked on each box and from here I could start to unpack the sizes in the ranges from S-4XL in a chronological order. This makes sense, because if all shirts with size ‘Small’ are washed together and dried together, it will be easier for me to put the price tag back on and pack them down into boxes, rather than having to go back and forth because shirts and sizes are mixed.

This is the factory where the magic happens.

Process of price tagging and wrapping the shirts plastic before packing them down into boxes and making them ready for delivery.



Another picture of the process.




All 8000’s shirts ended with 6 pallets.

I really enjoyed working with the shirts, even though the monotonic aspects attached to it, you learn a lot about how to plan and manage your time and resources, but also to think and be a step ahead.

During this time, I was also trained in the new system for when laundry comes in to the factory (either from one of the 3 hand-in laundry shops, the shop at the factory, or from the delivery cars).
When laundry comes in to VIC, usually we use a pink paper (like the one seen below) which serves as the receipt for what laundry the customer has handed in to us. We also keep a copy of the receipt. Each receipt has a unique four-digit number and tags which we mark the laundry with so we can ensure that the customer is given back what he/she has handed in.
VIC being a modern business, wanted to instead have all this information digitally as it would facilitate the everyday tasks which requires sometimes the price or delivery date to be altered. Another benefit of the digital system is that it is easier to keep customer’s information updated, and we don’t have to ask them each time their name and phone number as it is in the system.

The receipt from the new system also calculates the price and discounts (if applicable). An example of the new system receipt can be seen below.

The receipt VIC used to have.

The receipt from the new system.

During this same time period I was informed that I would be given an opportunity that included their shops (especially one of them which is located in Hisingen).
I will tell you more about this next week.

/ Emma