LAUNDRY and textile rental company Fishers has launched a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of Strathclyde aimed at helping it to capitalise on its fitting of radio frequency identification technology to bed linen and towels.

Fishers, based at Cupar in Fife, fits all of its top-of-the-range “ZHEN” bed linen and towels with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. This offering is branded as “luxury linen with intelligence", and it enables both Fishers and its customers to keep track of all textiles.

This enables hotels to know how much stock they are holding and allows Fishers to keep track of where all of its RFID-tagged laundry is in the washing, delivery and collection cycle.

The firm, a major player in its sector in Scotland and north-east England, washes, dries and irons around two million pieces of linen every week.

Fishers aims, through the partnership with the University of Strathclyde, to investigate what other applications the technology may have in future.

The two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership aims to enable Fishers to capitalise on the analysis and interpretation of the “big data” generated by its RFID-tagged bed linen and towels, and improve its strategic planning skills in textile purchasing and its specification of bed linen and towel characteristics with suppliers. It will also assist the firm in developing the associated intellectual property.