01
Group sees the numbers but not the cause.
PPOH is down 8% on Plant 3 but nobody can tell you whether it is sortation, finishing, sickness, training, or equipment downtime. Three months later it is still down.
Industry · 01
Commercial Laundries
Multi-site economics live and die on PPOH.
A 5% productivity swing across six plants is the difference between a profitable group and a loss-making one. I have lived inside that math for thirty years.
What I see in this sector
A clear-eyed read on how this business actually runs.
Commercial laundry is one of the hardest businesses to run profitably. Labor is your biggest line item but you can't cut it without cutting throughput. Utilities are rising every year. Textile costs are squeezed by clients pushing for lower per-kg pricing. Equipment depreciation is brutal. And every contract demands consistency you can only deliver if every plant in your group is hitting its PPOH target every shift.
When I was Group Operations Director at Paragon, we ran six commercial laundries across the UK southwest. I learned that group-level numbers lie. The blended PPOH looks fine while one plant is bleeding. The group EBITDA looks healthy while one contract is below break-even. Real operational control means knowing exactly which plant, which shift, which line is the problem — and which lever moves it.
Most multi-site operators have great data but no operational read on it. I help groups translate dashboards into actions that show up on next month's P&L.
Where projects struggle
Four problems I keep seeing.
02
CAPEX decisions made without operational input.
Equipment chosen by finance and procurement based on quote price. Five years in, the lifecycle cost is double what the cheap line is producing.
03
Tender margins compressed by competitors.
You're winning bids but losing money. The operational assumptions in the bid were optimistic. The plant can't actually deliver the throughput the bid promised at the labor cost it promised.
04
Senior operations leadership thin.
GMs of individual plants are firefighting. Group ops director slot vacant or stretched. No one is doing the cross-plant work that drives 200 basis points of margin.
How I help
Specifically for commercial.
01
Multi-site operational diagnostic
I go plant by plant. Production, engineering, transport, service, P&L. I tell you exactly where the leaks are and what each one is worth in annualized EBITDA.
02
PPOH and productivity improvement
At Paragon I took site-level PPOH from 80 to 145. At Clean Linen, from 90 to 135. The work is granular — line balancing, work measurement, manning models. It is exactly what I do.
03
Vendor-neutral equipment advisory
When a tunnel washer purchase has to make sense for 10 years across multiple sites, the decision is not the brochure. I help operators make CAPEX calls that pay back.
04
Tender operational costing
Before you bid, I model what the operation has to actually deliver to hit the margin you need. If the bid is unwinnable at a sustainable cost, you find out before you submit.
05
Senior operations recruitment
I have recruited senior production, engineering, and operations talent from the UK, Europe, South Asia, and within the GCC. I know who is good and who is available.
Relevant work
Projects that gave me the reps.
Paragon Laundry Group
6
Laundries · Multi-Site P&L
Group Operations Director responsible for six commercial laundries in the UK southwest. Twelve years across the group. Site-level linen throughput from 150K to 400K pieces/week. PPOH from 80 to 145. Senior management board member.
Lavndry Group — Riyadh & Dammam
76 t/day
Combined Linen Capacity
Built and launched two greenfield central laundries from concept to commercial operation. Structured group-level operations and the commercial book including St. Regis, JW Marriott, and the Qiddiya 5-year exclusive.
MCL Qatar
78,000 kg/day
Peak Daily Capacity
General Manager. Scaled the operation from 20,000 to 78,000 kg per day in 18 months. Turned a loss-making business into bottom-line profit. Re-organized workflow, commissioned new equipment, rebuilt the team.
Get in touch
Tell me about your commercial project.
Tell me about your group — number of plants, current PPOH/cost-per-kg if you know them, and where you suspect the leaks are.
Tell me about your project.
Tell me about your group — number of plants, current PPOH/cost-per-kg if you know them, and where you suspect the leaks are.
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