CHAPTER 5
THE SHIP'S LAUNDRY
One of the supply officer's responsibilities is to provide laundry service to the ship's crew. This is done through the operation of the ship's laundry which is operated by Ship's Servicemen. The laundry service provided is directly in line with the overall mission of the Navy. This service provides shipboard personnel with living and working conditions that will result in a high state of crew morale, health and comfort, adequate to sustain maximum personnel effectiveness, and to support an increase in personnel retention. The ship's laundry works on a workflow concept; that is, laundry is routed through one work station to another until it is completed. The main purpose of this workflow is to obtain efficient production. As a Ship's Serviceman working in the laundry, you need to become familiar with the different tasks that make up this laundry workflow. This chapter provides working personnel in the ship's laundry with information and facts concerning the operation of the laundry. It also covers the tasks involved in processing laundry from the receipt of bundles or bulk work through the assembly and issue of the finished work to the individual or division.

SAFETY
Safety is discussed throughout this chapter and is a very important aspect of the laundry process. Safety cannot be overemphasized. The safety precautions for shipboard laundries are contained in Navy Safety Precautions Afloat, OPNAVINST 5100.19A, chapter 13, section 2. The laundry supervisor is responsible for making sure all laundry personnel have safe work practices. Technical manuals for each piece of equipment list the safety precautions and safety features for that equipment. A list of safety precautions for each piece of equipment should be posted near the machine for all laundry personnel to read, remember, and practice.

These charges will also cover the cost of operating supplies for the barbershop and the dry-cleaning plant.
Charges are also made for laundry service provided for the sick bay when the charges exceed $25 per month. Charges are based on services

SANITATION
The purpose of the ship's laundry is to produce clean clothing through the laundry process. This washing process should be done in a sanitary manner. The medical officer or senior Hospital Corpsman aboard should inspect the laundry frequently to make sure laundry spaces are kept in a sanitary condition as outlined in the Manual of Naval Preventive Medicine, NAVMED P-5010, chapter 2.
The senior medical officer aboard ship pre-pares the sanitation requirements. If a medical officer is not attached aboard ship, the senior Hospital Corpsman aboard prepares the sanita-tion requirements. These sanitation requirements are posted in the laundry for all laundry personnel to read and rigidly endorse. The ship's store officer should inspect the laundry each business day to make sure sanitation regulations are complied with.

CHARGES FOR LAUNDRY SERVICE
Normally laundry service aboard ship is free. The materials used in processing laundry are paid for through the profits made by the ship's store. In certain cases these profits, generated through the ship's store, may not be sufficient enough to cover the cost of the supplies necessary to operate the laundry and the commanding officer may authorized the collection of the following charges on a monthly basis:

1 Officers $1.25
1 Midshipmen and chief petty officers .75
1 Other enlisted personnel .35 79

costing 1 cent per pound of laundry. Records should be kept if the amount of work received from sick bay monthly is in excess of $25. Laundry services in excess of $25 are charged to the ship's OPTAR.

LAUNDRY PERSONNEL
Personnel preassigned to the laundry from the Ship's Serviceman complement. The allowance of rated personnel is based on the assumption that an additional number of nonrated personnel will be required in order to operate the laundry efficiently. These additional personnel, unless detailed for a specified time (3 months or less), are classified as strikers for the Ship's Serviceman rating. The organization of a ship's laundry varies with the size of a ship. A small ship, for example, may have a Ship's Serviceman 2 in charge of the laundry and two Ship's Servicemen 3 assigned as laundry personnel. These three persons receive, wash, and issue finished laundry. They do every-thing necessary in the laundry. A large ship, on the other hand, has a much larger laundry operation. A new Navy carrier may have as many as 50 Ship's Servicemen working in the laundry. A guide for determining the number of personnel required to perform the laundry function is 1 laundryman for every 75 to 100 crew members. Figure 5-1 illustrates the organization of a shipboard laundry on a carrier. This chart gives you a basic idea how duties and responsibilities are administered in the laundry. In a large laundry such as this, each section has its own personnel, although individuals might be moved from one section to another from time to time to accom-modate the workload or to provide training and experience. In a small laundry, all these functions are performed with fewer personnel and less working space. The result is likely to be a simpler organization chart, with each person performing a variety of tasks.