BLOGS

PURCHASE OF LINEN

Purchase of linen is generally done by the purchase department and the requirement is made by the housekeeping department. There are chiefly three areas which should be looked properly.

1. QUANTITY

2. QUALITY

3. SIZE

1. QUANTITY:

The quantity of linen would depend on many factors as mentioned below:

• Size of the hotel or property

• Standard the hotel wants to maintain for the guest

• Occupancy percentage of the hotel

• In-house or contracted laundry facility

• Number of staff employed.

• Storage space

Generally, every hotel should keep three set of linen to complete one cycle of operations.

Linen is a type of non-recycled inventory and is measured with two references: -

a) PAR- It refers to standard quantity or number of each inventoried item that must be on hand to support daily, routine housekeeping operations. The inventory levels for recycled items are measured in terms of a par number.

b) PAR NUMBER -It is a multiple of the standard quantity of a particular inventory item that must be on hand to support day to day housekeeping functions.

2. QUALITY:

The purchase of the linen should have value for money and the best quality linen should to made available within the given budget and following factors to looked into:

Selection of correct or good quality fabric.

Thread count of the yarn.

Thread count: The total number of warps and wefts in 1square inch of fabric. The fabric is considered to be of good quality linen if its thread count is above 150. The balance between warp and weft is also important. The warp should be higher and weft should be no more than ten less. This is required for stretch recovery when ironing task is performed on the fabric.

Color fastness

Reputed manufacturers-where the linen item samples can be provided to the hotel for proper testing and assurance of the material.

3. SIZE:

Purchasing linen should be of right size can affect appearance and even hamper operations.