PLANT TOUR
Bright Lights, Big City:
Brady Handles Hospitality in Las Vegas
Independent
operator upgrades
its plant,
while focusing
on growth
opportunities in
the hospitality
market
By Jason Risley
30
T
he Venetian/Palazzo. Bellagio. Mandalay Bay.
Excalibur. Luxor. New York-New York. All
of these are highly recognizable names to
anybody that’s ever visited Las Vegas, or seen
the famous Strip on film or TV, popularized
by shows like CSI on CBS, for that matter. A
less recognizable name to the common Las
Vegas tourist is Brady Linen Services LLC, but
this company plays a key role in ensuring that
guests have a comfortable stay at almost any of
“Sin City’s” hotels, resorts and casinos.
BRANCHING INTO LAUNDERING
Brady Industries Inc. was founded in 1947 by
Eric’s grandfather, Herman Brady, as a provider
of cleaning supplies in the Las Vegas market.
Roughly 30 years ago, the company also began
building laundries for large casinos and resorts
in the Las Vegas area and around the globe. The
company has built laundry facilities for MGM
Grand, Caesars and other hotels, large and small.
Then, in 2000, the company got its chance to
move out of merely building laundry facilities
and into processing sheets, towels and other
The major player in the area’s
hospitality items for a large Las
hospitality market, Brady Linen
Vegas casino. “In 2000, we had
processes roughly 80% of the
an opportunity to build a large
“We truly consider our
available laundry work on the
central laundry for a customer
Las Vegas strip, according to
at Park Place, and to do that
customers as partners
President Eric Brady. Across its
they centralized their laundry
in service, and we like
six area facilities, the company
operations,” Brady says. “That
to consider ourselves
processes about 1 million lbs.
left an available laundry, and
as an extension of their
of laundry daily, which equals
Aladdin (a hotel and casino on
roughly 1.4 million pieces per
the strip that has since been
operation to make their
day. In a city known for its
replaced by the Planet Hollyjob as easy as possible.” wood Resort and Casino) at the
glitz and glamour, the company’s scale is massive. Out of
time was interested in having us
roughly 130,000 rooms in Las
process their linen. It worked
Vegas, Brady processes linens for nearly 80,000.
out that there was an empty laundry available
for us to purchase, as well as a customer that was
And of the linen that isn’t available for processwilling to give us a shot. So in 2000 is when we
ing, the company in many cases had a hand in
opened up our own facility.”
that as well, as its in-house laundry design and
construction team helps build facilities in the
With the Aladdin contract signed, Brady Linen
Las Vegas area and worldwide. “For instance, at
Services was formed. This company would focus
a place like the Caesars Entertainment Central
on laundering textiles for resorts and casinos
Laundry,” says Jason Johnson, divisional manager,
in the Las Vegas market, while Brady Industries
sales, laundry and warewash for Brady Linen.
would continue to focus on distributing laundry
“They do the laundry for about 12 of their
equipment, supplies and cleaning products to its
properties there, so it’s not available for us to
customers.
process; however, we did build that facility.”
Textile SERVICES
An overview of Brady Linen’s recently upgraded wash aisle at its Mayflower plant.
While the companies are two distinct
entities, having the name identification
associated with the already-established
Brady Industries lent credibility to
Brady Linen when it entered the
textile services market. “We established
a reputation over the last 60 years,”
Brady says. “That helped us enter a
market that was extremely competitive, but what allowed us to grow is the
service and quality that we perform.
We truly consider our customers as
partners in service, and we like to consider ourselves as an extension of their
operation to make their job as easy as
possible.”
GROWTH MODE
As part of this customer focus, Brady
Linen currently is looking to bring
new clients into its current operation
in Las Vegas. The company also is interested in expanding its reach into other
markets with a large hotel base—places
www.textileservices.org
like New York, Orlando and Atlantic
City, to name a few, seem like an ideal
fit for this hospitality specialist. “We’re
always open to and excited for growth,
whether it’s in our current market or
new markets,” Brady says. “If we feel
we can add value to a hotel that’s currently doing laundry in house, we’d be
very interested in exploring it.”
The time seems right to make a move
for more hotel business. Brady sees a
trend toward hotel OPLs (on-premise
laundries) outsourcing their work. For
clients that are ready to make this
move, the process begins with Brady
Linen doing a detailed analysis of the
hotel’s laundry operations. “If a hotel is
interested in outsourcing, first we like
to evaluate their current processes with
them,” Brady says. “More often than
not, we find that they have inaccurate
information or misinformation—
maybe incorrect measures of the total
pounds they’re processing, or what the
Out of roughly 130,000 rooms
in Las Vegas, Brady processes
linens for nearly 80,000.
total cost is. First, we try to understand
where they are, and if there’s a mutual
understanding that we could reduce
their costs, then we generally make
that transition. We pride ourselves on
quality. We’ve never had a situation
where the quality was downgraded
because of outsourcing. We’d never expect a customer to make a transition if
it sacrificed their quality or total cost.”
The transition typically allows the
hotel to focus on its core business and
upgrade its service to its guests, rather
than having to focus on running the
laundry. “It’s always nice to find somebody that specializes in something,”
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PLANT TOUR
It allows them to focus on what they do well. Run a hotel. Their
core business is not the laundry. Ours is. We fill a pretty unique
and specific niche when it comes to what we do and what we do
well, and that is the hospitality industry.
– Eric Brady, President
Johnson says. “To let them take that
work and that burden off of your
shoulders. If it can essentially save you
money and you get better quality, why
wouldn’t you do that?”
Brady adds that, “It allows them to focus on what they do well. Run a hotel.
Their core business is not the laundry.
Ours is. We fill a pretty unique and
specific niche when it comes to what
we do and what we do well, and that
is the hospitality industry. Our core
strength is the hospitality linen. This
focus has allowed us to understand
our customers and what’s important to
them.”
While the company will launder
uniforms, it does so only when tied
in with a larger hotel linen contract.
“When the hospitality agreement contract is all encompassing, we’ll do uniforms,” Brady says. “We do 25,000 lbs.
a day right now. When you look at the
properties we service from a hospitality
standpoint, that’s very small. 100% of
those uniforms are for team members
that work inside these hotels.”
The company also processes specialty items for VIP guests at the hotels,
Johnson notes. “We call it guest valet,”
Brady says. “If a customer wants their
clothes pressed or cleaned, we’ll do
that for the hotel.”
MAYFLOWER FACILITY
Brady Linens’ corporate headquarters
is located in its Mayflower Avenue
plant in North Las Vegas, which the
company took over when it purchased
the resort laundry division of Mission
Industries in 2011. The facility recently
received extensive upgrades to its wash
aisle and has the capacity to process
400,000 lbs. daily as a result of the
renovation, which included four new
tunnel washers and a state-of-the-art
sorting system.
During the summer, Brady Linen
wrapped up the installation of four
new Pellerin Milnor PulseFlow® CBW
tunnel washers—three nine-module,
250 lb. tunnels and one eight-module,
250 lb. tunnel. One of these tunnels
is designed for specialty items such
as shower curtains and mats, and is
equipped with a twin centrifugal
extractor.
In a city that never sleeps, it was a
huge undertaking to continue processing linens for a large number of
the city’s casinos and resorts 24/7,
while undergoing dramatic renovations. The $13 million upgrades to the
180,000-square-foot plant took seven
months to complete. Brady Linens’ first
priority was to upgrade the wash aisle
in the plant. The finishing area is the
focus of the second phase of upgrades,
Johnson says. The first new tunnel
washer was installed in January, the
second in March, the third in June and
the final one in July, coinciding with
Textile Services visit to the facility.
“It’s been challenging, but one luxury
that we have is other laundry facilities that have been able to support us
throughout this process,” Brady says.
“Without that, our customers would
have felt that negatively. But we have
a staff of in-house engineers that have
done a great job in keeping the plant
operational, so that production has
been able to continue. We transferred
Clean linens are stored according to delivery location and type of textile item before being placed on the truck for delivery to the customer.
32
Textile SERVICES
gallons of fresh water
will be saved
THIS YEAR ALONE.*
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tunnel customers are saving millions of gallons of fresh water... over 500 million gallons this year alone.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg-sized savings. Thanks to Milnor’s revolutionary PulseFlow® Technology, True Top transfer and
RecircONE® pump arrangements, their laundry is getting cleaner than ever before.
Learn more about this radical approach to tunnel washing and how you can save. Contact an authorized Milnor distributor
or call 504-712-7656.
To see how a PBWTM works,
scan this code.
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*Based on replacement of washer-extractors, 1st and 2nd generation tunnel washers.
/ pellerinmilnor
PLANT TOUR
some work to other plants, but it was
more on an emergency basis. Generally speaking, I think the engineering
staff did a good job in managing the
construction to support the production.
We did that all in house through our
laundry design and construction team.”
In addition to the four tunnel washers,
Brady Linen installed 16, 500 lb. dryers
and six 300 lb. dryers manufactured
by Pellerin Milnor Corp. These dryers
are equipped with Milnor Autolint
technology—a central vacuum that
collects the lint from all the dryers and
gathers it in one central location. Every
detail of cleanliness is important when
you’re processing high-end linens for
five-diamond resorts like The Venetian/
Palazzo.
While the renovations were challenging at the time, they were also fruitful.
As a result of the renovations to the
plant’s wash aisle, Brady Linen estimates an average savings of 1.9 gallons
of water per lb. of laundered goods.
On the new PulseFlow tunnels alone,
the company averages 0.4 gallons of
water per lb. of linen, Johnson notes.
“We believe that the water savings has
a positive impact, especially in Las
Vegas, where water is a scarce resource,”
Brady says.
(clockwise from top) A sign hangs in the plant touting the company’s dedication to safe operations; recent
upgrades to the facility’s wash aisle have increased throughput; employees sort linens from a hotel
customer; and a control screen keeps track of operations on one of the plant’s four tunnel washers.
34
Johnson adds that, “The water savings
is huge. The chemical usage will go
down, and the sewage will go down as
well. All the new dryers have upgraded
low NoX burners on them, so we’re
using less natural gas. The decreased
water use is key, especially in the desert.
If we were only gauging the use out of
the PulseFlows, our water use would
be lower, but we also run a separate
area for food and beverage and uniforms, and there is old technology in
that area, so it’s a cumulative number.
We’re using less water and improving
the quality of the linen. The properties
Textile SERVICES
PLANT TOUR
can see it, and they call and ask what
we’ve done differently.”
In addition to the new tunnels, another
major upgrade is the E-Tech sorting
deck, which will be a critical feature
handling the volume that comes
through the Mayflower plant on a daily
basis. The mezzanine-level system is
one of the largest sorting platforms in
the world, according to Johnson, with
38 sorting compartments. The system
features two sides and has an electronic
screen which directs laundry staff as to
what property the item is from, what
the item is, where it’s going and how
full that area of the laundry is. The
dual-sided capacity allows the laundry
to sort different properties simultaneously, or different types of linen at
the same time. “The sorting system is
what’s going to allow us to do 400,000
lbs. in 16 hours,” Brady says. “It allows
us to handle the type of volume that
we process here. As well as it better
allows us to track and report the linen
on an individual customer basis.”
The finishing area is the next area of
the plant that will undergo upgrades.
Right now, Brady Linen has begun
installing new Chicago Skyline folders
with Chi Touch software. This will
continue until the plant has the latest
technology available throughout the
facility.
With its upgrades in technology and
keen eye on quality, Brady Linen is
poised for growth in the Las Vegas
hospitality market and beyond. TS
Jason Risley is associate editor of Textile
Services. Contact him at 877.770.9274 or
jrisley@trsa.org.
www.textileservices.org
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