HID Global’s Textile Services division is furthering its expansion into the textile-management market with the acquisition of U.S.-based laundry services company InvoTech Systems. The December 2021 acquisition was HID Global’s second of the year, both of which are intended to expand its presence in global textile inventory-management systems to hospitality and laundry services, as well as healthcare. HID Global is an ASSA ABLOY Group brand, and its Textile Services business unit is based in Europe.
InvoTech will continue to serve customers out of its California office and its management will remain in place. “This [acquisition] is all about our commitment to invest in RFID technology and related solution enablement where growth is clearly identified for the next few years,” says Richard Bailly, the VP of HID’s Textile Services business unit. The acquisition, he explains, will add RFID solutions and geographic reach for HID’s textile inventory-management systems.
InvoTech’s linen-management solution
In March 2021, HID acquired Invengo’s Textile Services division, then launched its own RFID-enabled linen and laundry management system that is now being provided to customers in Europe, primarily to rental laundries working within the hospitality and the healthcare markets (see HID Global Acquires Invengo’s Textile Services Division). Before that, HID had already been providing RFID tags to the laundry and textiles industry. The Invengo acquisition, Bailly says, made HID a full solution enabler for the textile services market. Its linen-management platform, known as ACUITY, consists of software, UHF RFID tags and readers, and cloud-based services for tracking linens and other textiles.
The system is intended to optimize onsite storage, reduce losses and ensure inventory is available when needed. The ACUITY platform is designed to be integrated with users’ existing laundry processes and enterprise resource planning software. The solution has been deployed, in large part, by laundries, hotels and healthcare facilities throughout Europe to track inventories of items such as bed sheets and towels as they are used, laundered and reused. Companies employing the system can reportedly reduce losses and misplaced items, ensure linen availability per type and quantities required, guarantee linen quality thanks to automated wash counts, and provide more accurate billing with the external laundry for each item.
HID’s ACUITY linen-management platform
Founded in 1993, Invotech is based in Woodland Hills, Calif. It has 17 employees and offers uniform- and linen-management solutions in the United States and globally. The company has carried out deployments at 700 sites, including 500 properties in the United States, according to Oswald Lares, InvoTech’s sales director.
Recent customers include China’s Universal Studios Beijing, Resorts World in Las Vegas and Virgin Voyages’ cruise ship Valiant Lady. Virgin Voyages has been a customer since early 2020, with its Scarlet Lady already utilizing the technology. In addition, InvoTech provides services to Legoland New York. Legoland Dubai, which was already using the solution for uniform management, has added the linen-management solution to its deployment as well. Virgin Las Vegas, Virgin New Orleans and New York City’s Hudson Yards are also using InvoTech’s technology.
Richard Bailly
As a member of HID Global’s team, InvoTech will help the firm expand its laundry and hospitality solutions presence throughout North America, while bringing InvoTech solutions to Europe. The global demand for laundry- and textiles-management solutions has been ongoing, the companies report. HID cites an anticipated compounded annual growth rate for the global laundry RFID market of approximately 12 percent between 2020 and 2025, according to analyst firm MarketsandMarkets.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted textile management in several ways. Hospitality and healthcare providers are accelerating their use of technology to automate uniform and linen management, Lares says, while laundry services are seeing increases in volumes from these markets. To reduce virus transmissions, hospitals recently have been leveraging the contactless functionality provided by RFID data capture of soiled textiles. At the same time, the pandemic put the hospitality industry on pause for the past two years, though properties continued to invest in automation technologies. Demand is increasing, the companies report, as tourist and business travel resume.
Oswald Lares
At HID, Bailly says, “We are growing organically, as well as growing through acquisitions.” The company’s acceleration into the hospitality market, due to the InvoTech acquisition, will help HID serve that market as well as healthcare, he adds. “Our expectation is that business will grow significantly, making HID Global a leader in the market.” InvoTech’s business has been steady despite the pandemic, Lares notes, and 2021 was a good year for the company.
InvoTech’s real-time inventory-management platform includes its Uniform System for monitoring the lifecycle of employees’ uniforms from the date of purchasing through daily use, then on to maintenance and discarding. Its Linen System automates linen inventory-management operations using RFID tags for the automatic identifying, counting and tracking of such items as bedding and tablecloths. And its Laundry System tracks and manages laundry activities for customer-owned and rental uniforms and linens for industrial laundries, hotels and hospitals.
“InvoTech will help them [HID] hit the ground running in hospitality with a global footprint,” Lares states. Bailly adds that HID will benefit from having combined resources and expertise in textile inventory optimization and management.