Established in 1970, Foundation of Valais in Favor of Mentally Handicapped Persons (FOVAHM) is a foundation to safeguard and train people with disabilities. Currently, more than 360 disabled people live and attend classes and workshops at the center for dependent and retired people in Valais, Switzerland. FOVAHM’s mission is to improve their quality of life and encourage their social inclusion. FOVAHM advocates development in their residents regardless of disability. The foundation provides training for 17 different professions via 22 workshops that are specialized and adapted to their capabilities.
Established in 1970, Foundation of Valais in Favor of Mentally Handicapped Persons (FOVAHM) is a foundation to safeguard and train people with disabilities. Currently, more than 360 disabled people live and attend classes and workshops at the center for dependent and retired people in Valais, Switzerland. FOVAHM’s mission is to improve their quality of life and encourage their social inclusion. FOVAHM advocates development in their residents regardless of disability. The foundation provides training for 17 different professions via 22 workshops that are specialized and adapted to their capabilities.
Built and managed by the FOVAHM, the “mARTigny boutique-hôtel” was created specifically for integrating people with disabilities into a professional work environment. Currently 40 residents of FOVAHM are employed by the hotel in various roles.
The ability to integrate people with disabilities in a commercial laundry facility, while maintaining the highest level of quality required in a hotel environment, was the main goal for the hotel’s “La Romaine” laundry department.
The challenge was to implement a system providing a safe, efficient environment that allows people with disabilities to work under limited supervision, while maintaining a high standard of quality. A major issue was to create a system that sorted the linens automatically, so that their team members do not need to determine laundry treatments for particular items, which would be a challenge for them. Furthermore they needed a solution to automatically identify each owner of an item, as laundry facility also cleaned the hotel linens and personal clothing items of the FOVAHM residents.
FOVAHM collaborated with HygieClean to define an efficient linen traceability system. The mission was to create a laundry system with technology that accommodates their team, while streamlining efficient operations. Due to the system’s unique requirements, it was essential to create a workflow that prevents handling errors and is easy to use.
HID Global, HygieClean and FOVAHM collaborated to design and architect an RFID solution that is simple and easy to use, enabling unique personnel to work successfully in a commercial laundry environment. HID Global was chosen as the trusted partner for HygieClean due to the RFID expertise and quality manufacturing processes.
HID Global’s LinTag UHF transponders were securely and discreetly embedded into bed linens, towels, garments and clothes. HID tags were selected due to their high robustness withstanding repeated washings (up to 300), drying and ironing and easy application to the linen.
Leveraging HID Global’s LinTag UHF, every piece of laundry is uniquely identified by the owner’s name, laundry type, color and specific treatment for the garment or linen to control inventories and laundry prior to delivery.
Standard hotel laundry items, including napkins, bedsheets and towels, are tagged during production and ready to use upon delivery to the hotel. The FOVAHM residents’ private clothing items are tagged using heat-seal on the clothes when they first arrive at the laundry for processing.