MBH Enterprises

Mr. Milton B. Heilweil, president of MBH Enterprises, Inc. has been active in the laundry and dry cleaning industry since 1957.

He formed the company in 1972. As an independent consultant he has helped many full service laundries and shirt laundries to better utilize their staff, reduce costs, and maximize profits.

Realizing the time consuming job of shaking out shirts for the shirt unit was slow and costly, Mr. Heilweil said, "there’s got to be a better way". Thinking back, he remembered wide rubber bands were used to bundle the shirts years ago. They needed constant replacing. Also, there was the "no-knot" tie, which is still being used today. The rope is cotton restricting cleansing under the rope, the brass loop end does not always hold securely, and workers complain that "it hurts their hands" and is difficult to use. Neither method, (rubber bands nor the no knot tie) appeared to be a satisfactory product.

In 1989 Mr. Heilweil designed the MBH Rope-TieTM System. The Rope-TiesTM are easily stored on a swivel mount or a j-hook mounted at eye level on a wall or a free standing rack. Up to 8 shirts are nested on the j-hook, collar to collar. Two Rope-TiesTM are used. The first tie is moved from the storage position over the shirts and secured just below the shoulders. The second tie is secured just above the cuffs.

...results better than expected

The first production run was tested in three different laundry operations. Results were better than expected.

• When the shirts were tied in “logs”, they dropped from the top of the washer basket, dramatically increasing the “scrubbing” mechanical action, resulting in a cleaner, brighter shirt.
• Two of the test laundries were previously scrubbing collars which they have now discontinued.
• All the test laundries reported tangled sleeves in the wash are “history”, and no longer have to worry about damaging a sleeve when “pulling” shirts from the washer.
• Two reported, tied shirts took less space in the washer and were able to increase their wash load 25% which resulted in a “free” load every 4 washes bringing substantial savings in water, sewage, supplies and labor costs.
• All reported it was much easier and faster unloading the washer as well as loading.
• One laundry found orders tied together, stay together. By tying each order separately, when the shirts come off the shirt unit they are already assembled and he reduced his cost to sort and assemble orders by 50%.
• One laundry reported by tying 8 single shirt orders together he just inspected, bagged and stapled the customers ticket, speeding up his assembly line.

The three laundries all agreed, the ties held securely and the MBH Rope-TiesTM System had a lot to offer.

Tying order by order is now standard procedure. Satellite stores (drop stores) who now tie in each store find the shift in labor from plant to store, reduces costs. When the shirts, tied in logs, reach the main plant, they can be loaded directly into the washers according to starch classifications speeding up turn around time.