Controlling High Loss Items
Controlling the Forgotten Losses: How Linen Link RFID Dispensing Systems Eliminate High-Loss Items
Every laundry understands the major loss categories: Face washers, pool towels, scrubs, and pillowcases. But behind the scenes, some of the most problematic unaccounted-loss items are the most frequently used products.
Face washers, healthcare bunny rugs, theatre scrubs, and hotel pool towels constantly disappear at alarming rates. These items are used heavily, moved endlessly, and are rarely tracked.
Yet RFID chips are not economically viable for low-cost textiles like face washers; however, costly items such as scrubs and pool towels require more than simple RFID chip —they require user accountability.
This is where Linen Link’s RFID Dispensing and Access-Controlled Systems transform the entire model.
# The High-Loss Items That Vanish the Most
These categories often represent the highest losses in both healthcare and hospitality:
• Face washers – too low in cost to RFID-tag
• Bunny rugs in maternity and pediatrics – constant walk-offs and misuse
• Theatre scrubs & uniforms – taken home, misplaced, or not returned
• Pool towels – guests remove them from pool areas, rooms, or offsite entirely
These items disappear because there has been no effective way to track them—until now.
# Why RFID Tags Don’t Work for Low-Cost Items
RFID tagging makes economic sense only when the cost of the textile is high enough to justify the chip. A $0.70 chip in a $0.40 face washer is impossible to justify.
However pool towels and scrubs require accountability more than embedded RFID—they need to be linked to a person, department, or guest.
# Linen Link’s Solution: RFID Dispensing & Access-Controlled Systems
Linen Link now offers a full suite of automated dispensing systems designed specifically to control high-loss items with embedding RFID into each textile and tracking the user as well.
These systems track the **user**, as well as the textile. This creates accountability and eliminates walk-offs.
## 1. RFID Scrub & Uniform Dispensing Systems
Perfect for theatres, hospitals, healthcare, food prep & industrial environments.
These systems:
• Authenticate staff (swipe card, PIN, ID badge)
• Track exactly who takes the garments and when
• Automate garment dispensing and controlled return
• Generate usage and non-return reports
• Reduce garment losses by up to 90%
## 2. RFID Pool Towel Dispensing Stations
Ideal for hotels, resorts, aquatic centers, and leisure venues.
These systems:
• Dispense towels via guest ID, room key, or membership card
• Track who took towels
• Track whether they were returned
• Reconcile usage at checkout
• Immediately reduce high-volume towel losses
## 3. Access-Controlled Linen Lockers for Healthcare
Designed for maternity wards, pediatrics, ED, and department-specific linen.
Features include:
• Controlled access per department or staff member
• Time-stamped opening logs
• Stock-level monitoring
• Preventing walk-offs and removing uncontrolled access
This system finally provides oversight for high-loss, non-RFID-chip items.
# The Result: True Control Over High-Loss Items
Linen Link’s dispensing systems provide:
• Full user accountability
• Reduced walk-offs
• Accurate reporting
• Real-time visibility
• Lower replacement costs
• Significant reduction in unaccounted losses
For the first time, laundries and their customers can track items that were previously uncontrollable.
# Completing the RFID Ecosystem
Together with RFID-chipped linen tracking and Linen Link’s 100% validated soiled-in audit system, these dispensing systems complete the full loss-control cycle:
1. High-value linen tracked by RFID tags
2. High-loss low-value items controlled by access systems
3. Soiled-in validation eliminates customer disputes
Linen Link now delivers the industry’s first end-to-end loss-control solution.
