Smarter Tracking, More Accurate Service: How Crown Uses RFID and Barcodes
Uniform and linen services across New England depend on far more than just delivering clean products.
Every garment, towel, sheet, mat, lab coat, and reusable textile must move through collection, transportation, laundering, inspection, sorting, packaging, and redelivery. When thousands of products are circulating at once, accurate tracking becomes essential.
Crown Uniform & Linen Service uses scannable barcodes and radio frequency identification, better known as RFID, to create greater visibility throughout this process. By connecting physical products with digital records, Crown can strengthen inventory accuracy, investigate discrepancies, and help ensure customers receive the products they need.
How Crown Brings Greater Control to Textile Management
Reusable textiles are traditionally difficult to manage because they are constantly moving.
At any given time, a customer’s inventory may be:
- In use at their facility
- Waiting for collection
- Traveling on a Crown route
- Being sorted or laundered
- Undergoing inspection or repair
- Packaged for redelivery
Manual counts can provide a snapshot of how many items are present, but they offer limited information about where products have been or how frequently they are circulating.
That is why Crown uses technology to create a clearer record of product movement.
Industry research reflects the importance of this visibility. A survey published by American Laundry News found that nearly 90% of participating laundry operations used some form of linen-tracking system, most commonly for inventory management, waste reduction, and productivity measurement.
Two Technologies, One Smarter Tracking System
Barcodes and RFID both connect a physical product to digital information, but they work differently.
A barcode must typically be visible and scanned individually. This makes it useful for identifying a specific garment, wearer, customer account, bundle, or service activity.
RFID tags use radio waves and do not always require direct line-of-sight scanning. Depending on the system, multiple RFID-tagged items can be identified at once, making the technology especially valuable when counting large quantities of textiles.
Crown’s commitment goes beyond basic efficiency. In addition to scannable barcodes, Crown has RFID-tagged all garment inventory and most linen inventory, creating greater accuracy and visibility throughout the service cycle.
GS1, the international standards organization for barcode and RFID technologies, explains that RFID can capture unique product identifiers quickly and without direct line of sight. GS1 also notes that RFID and barcodes can complement one another rather than serve as competing systems.
By using both technologies, Crown can apply the right tracking method at different stages of processing and service.
Precision at Every Count
Accurate counts are essential to maintaining a dependable uniform and linen program.
RFID can help identify groups of products efficiently, while barcode scanning creates a record of individual garments or processing events. Together, these technologies give Crown more information about the products entering, moving through, and leaving its facilities.
This can help Crown:
- Verify product quantities
- Distinguish similar garments by wearer or department
- Confirm customer and product assignments
- Identify where an item was last scanned
- Investigate unusual inventory movement
- Reduce reliance on manual counting alone
Those results represent a specific system rather than a universal guarantee, but they demonstrate how RFID can improve accountability and count verification in commercial textile operations.
The Right Inventory, Without the Guesswork
Accurate counts are essential to maintaining a dependable uniform and linen program.
RFID can help identify groups of products efficiently, while barcode scanning creates a record of individual garments or processing events. Together, these technologies give Crown more information about the products entering, moving through, and leaving its facilities.
This can help Crown:
- Verify product quantities
- Distinguish similar garments by wearer or department
- Confirm customer and product assignments
- Identify where an item was last scanned
- Investigate unusual inventory movement
- Reduce reliance on manual counting alone
Commercial laundry case studies have demonstrated the potential of RFID-based tracking. One documented operation reported approximately 99% reading accuracy for incoming laundry carts and nearly 100% accuracy during outgoing processing.
Those results represent a specific system rather than a universal guarantee, but they demonstrate how RFID can improve accountability and count verification in commercial textile operations.
Better Data Creates Better Service
Tracking technology does more than improve internal processing. It helps create more productive conversations between Crown and its customers.
When inventory questions arise, Crown can use available data to better evaluate:
- How much inventory is currently circulating
- Which products are being used most frequently
- Whether established inventory levels still match customer needs
- Where products were last recorded
- Whether certain departments are experiencing unusual usage or loss
- Whether changes to collection, delivery, or internal distribution may help
This turns product tracking into a customer-service tool.
Rather than treating inventory concerns as isolated complaints, Crown can examine patterns, identify potential causes, and work with customers toward practical solutions.
Technology Backed by Personal Service
RFID and barcode systems are valuable, but technology alone does not create a dependable uniform and linen program.
Accurate tracking still depends on proper tagging, scanning, software configuration, system maintenance, employee training, quality inspections, and careful interpretation of the data.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology emphasizes that RFID systems should be designed around the specific business processes they support and managed with appropriate security and privacy safeguards.
At Crown, tracking technology supports the work of trained production teams, route representatives, service departments, and account coordinators. It provides better information, while Crown’s people use that information to make decisions and support customers.
Efficiency Customers Can See
Crown’s use of barcodes and RFID technology reflects a broader commitment to accuracy, accountability, and transparency.
By improving product identification and visibility, Crown can:
- Strengthen inventory counts
- Support accurate wearer and department assignments
- Investigate discrepancies more effectively
- Recognize inventory trends
- Make more informed service recommendations
- Provide customers with greater confidence in their program
The result is not simply a more efficient laundry process.
It is a smarter, more accountable uniform and linen service built around delivering the right products to the right place, with the dependable support customers expect from Crown.
See What Smarter Service Looks Like
Ready to bring smarter tracking and dependable local service to your facility?
Sources: