Magnarab leverages low-code to optimize industrial laundry operations and cut manual labor by 60%

The company

Founded in 2013, Magnarab is a design consultant and equipment supplier for large-format commercial laundries. It focuses exclusively on serving the niche market of industrial laundry and dry-cleaning operations predominantly in the Middle East, while also undertaking select projects in India and Africa.

It's the only firm in the region with hands-on experience in operating commercial laundries, catering to multiple industries, including hospitality, workwear, and retail.

The process

At Magnarab's laundry facilities, each garment undergoes a unique journey based on customer-specific requirements.

When a customer drops off multiple items, they may follow different paths through the facility. Some garments might require stain removal, while others need pre-brushing or various cleaning, drying, and finishing processes. This individualized approach creates a complex workflow where items from a single customer can be scattered across different stations throughout the factory.

The challenge arises during dispatch, as the original customer-specific logic must be reapplied to retrieve and group these dispersed garments. This traditional method, while tailored to each customer's needs, is labor-intensive and prone to errors due to its complexity and the manual tracking required.

The challenge

The challenges with the previous way of handling things at Magnarab included:

• Disconnected systems: Readymade solutions on the market for point-of-sale, accounting, and customer-facing applications weren't seamlessly integrable with backend factory operations.
• Mismatched software: Available solutions for large-format laundries were designed for markets with mature ecosystems and different business models, such as linen rentals and full services. The customer-owned goods (COG) segment also posed unique challenges, as most customers in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent operate under COG formats.
• Rigid, one-size-fits-all model: A one-size-fits-all template model couldn't address the unique demands of customers serving multiple segments, including retail, workwear, healthcare, hospitality, and multi-housing.

Magnarab initially partnered with a software firm in Bengaluru to develop a custom solution, but within six months, they realized that the software was inadequate, failing to address their core issues and offering only superficial features. Determined to find a better fit, they assembled their own team and spent over six years refining workflows for each of their service segments. Last year, they decided to take it a step further and entrusted Zoho to enhance their existing workflows with additional improvements.

The solution

Magnarab chose Zoho Creator for its flexibility and customization capabilities, enabling the development of tailored solutions that meet industry-specific operational needs. According to Sreejith, large-scale retail dry-cleaning requires a fundamentally different approach. Most available software solutions are simply scaled-up versions of dry-cleaning studio models and are not designed for large factories operating with a hub-and-spoke model.

While these solutions typically focus on front-end POS and logistics, Magnarab prioritized optimizing back-end operations, ensuring that every other function aligns with this workflow.

The MagnaFlow app effectively reduced Magnarab's labor requirements for garment tracking and dispatch by over 60%, while significantly minimizing errors.

Benefits and ROI

After implementing Zoho Creator, Magnarab's garment tracking process operates as follows:

• When a customer enters the store, a unique pre-printed barcode tag is affixed to the garment for efficient identification and tracking.
• The garment moves through various processes in both the outlet and factory, with all possible variations incorporated into the workflow design.
• The tracking system monitors the garment throughout the factory, preventing mix-ups with thousands of others, until it is collected and ready for delivery to the customer.

The automation and customization possibilities that Zoho Creator provides have been instrumental in optimizing Magnarab’s workflow.