JOHN FREDERICK RECEIVES THE FULL RENZACCI UK TREATMENT
John Frederick, with premises in Colindale, north London, is a specialist dry cleaner. But that does not begin to fully describe the activities or the expertise of this remarkable company. A family business, with a history dating back to 1928, it is today run today by two brothers, Mark and Wayne Church. Their knowledge has been passed down from their father who worked in the business for many years before buying it from the then owner in 1956. These days, just about the only thing they don’t clean is clothes.
They have an onsite carpet and upholstery cleaning side to the business, which Wayne and Mark oversee closely. At their premises, they dryclean all manner of rugs, curtains and blinds. There is some very specialist equipment here, including a venetian blind cleaning machine that cleans using ultrasound technology and they are just about to place an order for a specialist rug beating machine from the USA.
The brothers wanted the best, too, when recently they realised they needed to replace their 25-year old dry cleaning machine as it came to the end of its useful life. The machine was heavy on perc consumption and about to fall foul of SED regulations. With mixed feelings, they started to look for a replacement. “As things turned out”, says Mark, “the smartest move we ever made was to install a Renzacci machine.”
Renzacci UK plc had supplied some finishing equipment to John Frederick some years earlier, so it was no surprise that they were invited to tender for the new equipment. However, they were just one amongst several companies invited to quote for the replacement. In the end, the brothers selected Renzacci not just for the quality of the equipment which, when compared to other proposals was, in their opinion, far superior, but primarily because of the help and advice they received from Renzacci UK Managing Director, Jason Alexander.
Jason evaluated their requirements, which went well beyond simply installing a new machine. He put forward recommendations to considerably reduce the high level of water consumption and solved a problem with perc consumption that the brothers had been experiencing for some time. The Renzacci team did all the pre-installation work including laying new services without disturbing the smooth-running of the premises. “We were very impressed by Jason’s knowledge of the business” says Wayne. “He not only recommended a superb machine, his advice has helped us streamline our business and offered solutions to problems that had dogged us for years. Some of his suggestions have been real winners, including the introduction of a fireproofing service for curtains and upholstery, which is a value added service we now offer. His obvious experience of the drycleaning business gave us the confidence to place the order.”
RENZACCI PROGRESS 90/D2
The model they chose was a Renzacci Progress 90/D2 drycleaning machine with a 90 lb
load capacity, two distillation units and a Multosorb® consorber unit. This compared with a maximum 60lb capacity of the old machine, so already they were able to envisage savings. Additionally, since the Renzacci cleaning cycle is shorter than that of the old machine, due to faster drying times, they were able to significantly increase the number of daily loads processed. All in all, it meant that productivity soared and margins improved considerably.
The Progress machine is distinguished by the fact that it is fully equipped with features – there are no optional extras. That said, Wayne and Mark report that the Renzacci proposals were only marginally more expensive than the other quotes, but when they compared the features of the Renzacci machine with the competition, the price premium became insignificant when the quality and efficiency of this machine is taken into account.
VIDEOTRON TECHNOLOGY
Besides being equipped with an impressive range of features as standard, the Progress series of machines is well known for its reliability and it has lower running costs than any other machine on the market. The one feature that sold the Churches on Renzacci was the way that the Renzacci drycleaning machine can be manipulated using the patented 
Videotron system. This is a true real-time management and control system and an integral part of the machine. It has a large, graphic multi-lingual, full colour LCD display, which is equipped with an on-line guide, to control all the machine’s operating parameters. It also gives a graphic representation in real time of what is happening. “It is a very versatile system” says Mark. “We can simply use one of the automatic programmes or manually set the controls to solve specific problems. The facility is there to even tweak an automatic programme to suit a particular load incredibly simply.”
Installing a machine of this size is quite a task, requiring detailed planning and keen engineering skills and the brothers were delighted that things went so smoothly on installation day. “The Renzacci installation team was both courteous and efficient” says Wayne. “The pre-installation work on services and planning the building access really paid off. We chose a quiet Saturday morning and the machine was up and running within the day. We were back in business on Monday morning.” Jason also arranged an in-depth on-premises training course so that Wayne, Mark and their staff were well versed in the machines capabilities as well as learning advanced cleaning techniques specific to their niche market.
“As a business, we like to think of ourselves as professionals” says Wayne. “It is always a pleasure to meet a company that adheres to the same high standards. Jason and the Renzacci UK guys really know their business. As a company they listen and then tailor-make solutions to solve individual problems. In our dealings with them we found them to be honest and, at all times, reliable. We would not hesitate to recommend them.”
