To keep robes and towels from checking out, a small but growing number of hotels are starting to use new radio frequency chips to keep track of their inventory.
The RFID technology — which stands for radio frequency identification and requires an installed chip that can be read by an electronic reader — has been used by various industries for several years to organize product storage and tally shipments.
With cotton prices rising and fewer employees in housekeeping, hotels are using the tech to monitor the whereabouts of bathrobes, bed sheets, duvet covers, bathmats, pool towels and banquet linens.
About 5% to 20% of linens at hotels typically go missing, estimates William Serbin of Linen Tracking Technology. The company, which sells trackable linens, has teamed with Fluensee, an inventory tracking technology firm, to market RFID tags to hotels. A towel with a chip is about a dollar more than other towels, he says.
Bendable and washable, the tags can be read by sensors up to six feet away. When towels are removed from a closet, for example, a reader station can register how many, so that the closet can be restocked.
Some tags are sewn into the fabric. Others are in a rubber case.
Theft by guests is a factor but not the primary concern, says Jeff Welles of InvoTech, a firm that sells linen chips to hotels.
Like a sock that gets lost in the dryer, linens often go missing when they’re shipped to outside laundries. And, Welles says, they’re difficult and time-consuming to keep track of. Hotels can also use the system to ensure their laundry bill is correct.
This article makes no sense, the headline is chip to prevent theft and the article says the chip has nothing to do with theft its for inventory tracking, so what’ll it be