Mothering on the Edge

Thursday, May 18, 2006
Lean, Mean, Laundry Machine

So, this will be a long post. Better get a drink. Or, if you don't have time to read it, scroll down to my Thursday Thirteen. Not great, but not as long as this. Go ahead. Come back after bedtime. It'll still be here.

This is the story of how I changed my laundry room from Mount Washmore into a Lean, Mean, Laundry Machine. Seriously. I used to hate laundry. I would buy new clothes to get out of it. Now, I can't say I love it, but I don't dread it. I don't avoid it. And I'm always caught up. I share this, like I share my favorite cookie recipe, because it's too good to keep to myself, and my dear friend Magically Mama is suffering.

Most of the credit for this brilliance goes to my husband. He's an engineer. And he introduced me to LEAN engineering. He got a degree in engineering, and took whole courses in lean, but here's the sloppy homemaker's version: Lean manufacturing is manufacturing without wasted time, material or effort. So, when you're going to "lean" a process, you have to first examine it in its "current state" to see where the waste is. Then redesign the system to eliminate as much waste as possible. Diagram 1 is my "current state" laundry process, what it was like when we started.

I know...you might have to click on it to see it better. On the far left is our "suppliers"--where we get dirty laundry. We had 5 laundry baskets scattered around the house. I set it up this way so that the laundry would get in the baskets, rather than end up on the floor.

The triangles are WIP stations. The engineer says that stands for Work In Progress, but basically, it's stuff waiting to be done. You know, the stuff you keep mentally flogging yourself for? WIP stations. So each place where the laundry waits is a WIP station. Most of the time it would wait in the hamper for a few days...maybe a week.

Then, when I did laundry, I would gather up all the laundry and put it in the washer. (Duh, you're thinking. Edge, I know how to do laundry.--I know you do. Stick with me, here). My washer takes 35 minutes. Then (if I remembered) I would move the laundry to the dryer within 10 minutes. The dryer takes a while...another hour. Then, when THAT was done (again, if I remembered and hadn't forgotten I was doing laundry) I would take it out, and set it somewhere until I had time to fold it.

Folding is where we really get in trouble, isn't it? Can't fold it on the kitchen table without cleaning the kitchen. Can't fold it on the couch, or the kids mess it up before you finish. Can't fold it on your bed, because if you don't finish (all 4 loads you've been putting off all week) you have to dump it back into the basket before it's done, unfolding it! AUGHHHH! Folding is the worst!!! Our laundry was taking 1-5 days to get folded and put away. I make my kids (and husband) put their own laundry away. The problem is, they had these HUGE piles of laundry to put away, and they would whine and complain and I would chase them through it. Then they would drop half of it on the way to their rooms, which meant I had to refold it...again.

Ok, I needed a little break. Awful old laundry system. So we figured out a few of the waste points right away. Having multiple gathering points for the dirty laundry was wasteful. Briefly discussed putting in a laundry chute, but decided for now to just have a central gathering point--IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM!!! But, I said, the kids won't put their laundry in the laundry room! They'll leave it on the floor! And then I'll have to pick it up AND take it to downstairs!

So, we realized we had to make our suppliers and customers do their share of the work. This led to the Laundry Declaration of 2006, which reads:
Laundry is provided as a free service to all, regardless of family position, conditioned only on the fair use of said service.
-The Management

This means, that in order to have their laundry done, people need to A) bring their dirty clothes to the laundry basket, B) make sure their laundry is ready to wash, and C) put away their laundry daily. Some day I'll tell you about laundry abuses and the punishments thereof, but not today. Basically, if people (kids) fail to do these things, they lose privileges. First, TV, then freedom, then food. No messing around. Every afternoon when we get home from school, they have to take dirty laundry down to the white bin in the laundry room, and pick up clean, folded laundry from their baskets. Until they do, no afternoon snack, no playing outside, no TV, no dinner. When they get old enough to mind going naked, we'll switch it to just not doing their laundry. Simple enough...

So that was one waste point eliminated. The next was moving around clean laundry to fold it, and then refolding it because I couldn't get it all done in one sitting. The engineer had to really think about this one, because most manufacturing machine operators don't have constant interruptions. But, most machine operators don't move from their work area either. Bingo. He said I should fold the laundry right out of the dryer. WHAT? And put it where? Our laundry room is an unfinished place right off the garage. It's dusty and there is no way I'm putting clean laundry on the concrete floor.

So we got all the baskets from all over the house (remember? 5 of them!) and arranged them on the floor, one for each child, a big one for he and I, and one for the house (towels and such). Simple enough. Fold the laundry right out of the dryer and put it in the right bin for whoever needs to put it away. Now, this doesn't work as well when you're pregnant. You'll want a chair, then, so you can sit and fold. And yes, it's dull. But you aren't doing more than one load at a time. If I have more than 1 load to fold in a day, I do it on the couch. But that almost never happens. How? I'll tell you in a minute. I need another break.

Ok, dinner's in the oven (stuffed peppers! mmmm). Anyway. The main waste point we found was in time spent waiting (where the job could potentially be forgotten, sidetracked or otherwise messed up). It felt like it took ALL DAY to do the laundry. And basically, it did. Or several days:

10 minutes gathering laundry

5 minutes loading washer with load 1

(35 minutes of waiting for load 1 to wash)

10 minutes moving load 1 to dryer and loading load 2 into dryer

(1 hour waiting for load 1 to dry and load 2 to wash)

10 minutes unloading load 1 and loading load 2 into dryer.

(another hour waiting for load 2 to dry)

1 hour folding and refolding both loads

30 minutes getting people to put their laundry away

THAT'S nearly 5 HOURS!!! For only 2 loads, not the usual 3 or 4 I used to do. Now...hold on, because here comes the one really big change. Moving laundry baskets and folding in the laundry room...that's small potatos. The biggest change was to eliminate the waiting time as much as possible. Which meant changing the order I do laundry. No, I'm not drying first...exactly. But almost. But exercise a little faith...and keep reading. Remember, I spend less than an hour every other day on laundry. LESS THAN 1 HOUR!

Here is the "future state" diagram. You can see everyone brings their laundry straight to the single WIP in the laundry room. You can see everyone takes their laundry away when it's folded.

What you don't see is how I do the laundry. How I get it done in 40 minutes flat. Are you ready? Here's the secret:

I leave a load in the dryer.

Serious? Yes. And it makes all the difference. Each laundry day, I start a load in the washer. I take the old laundry out of the dryer and fold it while the washer is going. I put all the clothes and towels in their bins. I match the socks and toss them in, too. I fold a load in about 20 minutes. But the washer is still going? Right. But until it buzzes, I'm on the clock. I'm doing laundry! I read a blog or two, have a snack, play with the kids...whatever. When the washer buzzes, quick, I move that stuff to the dryer and start it. And I'm done!

New schedule:

5 minutes loading washer

20 minutes folding

10 minutes hanging out

5 minutes loading dryer

40 MINUTES TOTAL!

But wait! But wait, you say! If you leave the laundry in the dryer, doesn't it wait until next laundry day (in my house, 2 days away) to get "done"? Doesn't it wrinkle? Well, yes...but what do you think it's doing now, crumpled up in baskets mentally WIPping you? Taking days and days to get done and getting wrinkled! If you iron (I don't) you can make a separate basket for ironables and do them on a non-laundry day. Yes, that means it will take an extra week for them to get done. Look into drycleaning. *shrug*

Laundry takes 2-4 days to cycle at my house, from going into the laundry bin to being clean and folded, ready to put in a drawer. Don't like it? Do your own, I say!

The instructions for machine operators are called "standard work", the engineer tells me. They're posted near each machine so operators can be replaced quickly if needed. They don't usually include little laundry angel stickers, but tough. It's my process and I like the laundry angels.
And yes, I do spend an extra 10-15 minutes each day chasing kids through their afternoon routines...but that's something I had to do anyway. The laundry part of it is well worth the extra trouble.

So, how do we get from where we are now, to this lovely (or bizarre) system? Get help. Ask your husband, friend, kids...whoever you've got to spend the time with you to get your current piles done. Do it all! Fold it, put it away! No matter how tired you get! Never surrender!

And leave one load in the dryer when you're done. Then, tomorrow, get up and put one load in the washer. Fold what's in the dryer and make your kids put it away. Relax for 10 minutes. What a great homemaker you are! Then move the washed stuff to the dryer. Bam! You're done!

Good luck! Comments, suggestions and ideas are welcome. Criticism you can keep.

Posted by Sarah Jean :: 4:17 PM :: 4 Comments:

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