Laundry scheme has tech companies in a spin

WIRED ON FRIDAY: Imagine being able to find out from the comfort of your own room if a washing machine or dryer is available at the local Laundromat? This concept is a reality for some American university students and its popularity has IBM and USA Technologies bubbling over.

The system, e-Suds, replaces traditional coin-operated technology, allowing students at several universities to pay for their laundry by swiping an encrypted student ID card through a slot in the machines or punching in a special code on a mobile phone. This saves the students having to rummage around looking for coins to feed the machines. The cost of washing and drying will automatically be deducted from their student accounts, billed to their credit card or show up on their mobile phone bill. Alternatively, students could be charged a fixed amount each term for unlimited use of the machines.

IBM and USA Technologies are connecting washing machines and dryers at several US colleges and universities to the Web in an effort to take the dreariness out of doing laundry. American Sales of Dayton, Ohio, owns and operates 9,000 laundry machines in 40 colleges in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Kentucky. USA Technologies is retrofitting these machines with the e-Suds technology during this college term. Students at Cedarville College in Ohio are among the first to launder electronically. Spokesman Mr Roger Overturf says the school has ordered 175 of the machines, which arrived last month for testing and installation.

The machines are linked to intelligent back-end systems hosted by IBM. Using the system, students can visit a website where they see a virtual laundry room, which is customized for each college, and find out what machines are available. They could also select various functions, such as detergent and fabric softener, to be injected into their wash. The detergent and fabric softener are housed in one central location and can be pumped into a wash cycle at the push of a button. The student still needs to trudge down to the machines with his laundry but how long can it be until an enterprising student starts a pick-up and delivery service? When a load is finished, the system can notify the student by sending an e-mail to his or her pager or computer or a text message to his or her mobile phone.

For laundry owners, e-Suds allows them to conduct coin-free transactions, sell detergent and fabric softener as part of a wash, and service machines only when needed. The owners can go online to monitor machine performance and conduct maintenance, as well as check filter clogs, water temperature and usage. The chance of vandalism is also reduced because no cash is lying in coin boxes in the machines. Sources in the vending industry say annual losses attributed to vandalism are about $500 million (€510 million), not including the cost of repairing and/or replacing machines.

Mr George Jensen, chief executive of USA Technologies said: "Vending is the biggest cash business in America - $40 billion a year. They take coins and bills. Now we come along with credit cards."

Mr Jensen said most of the country's seven million vending machines lose sales when customers fail to find the right coins to use. By contrast, tests have shown that cashless payments have driven a 15 to 25 per cent increase at some vending machines, he said.

Cashless and credit card transactions at vending machines nearly quadrupled between 1990 and 2000, and research firm Ovum predicts that wireless micropayments - transactions of less than $10 - will total $200 billion worldwide by 2005.

IBM is hosting the e-Suds transaction data and websites, and integrating the technology that handles inventory, payment authorisation and reports.

According to Ms Jan Walbridge, a spokeswoman for IBM global services, IBM takes all the information from the swiping process and links it to the website. "We're the plumbing underneath the system," she said. USA Technologies is providing the cashless technology and, through its e-Suds system, someone can use Radio Frequency Identification Tags, student IDs with personal identification numbers and pre-paid wash cards. In future, the technology could work well in apartment or condominium complexes, anywhere there is a community of users.

The e-Suds system was tested on 12 machines during the spring term at Boston College and, according to IBM, the students loved it. The system offers several benefits: they don't have to wait around the hot Laundromat for each cycle to finish and they can manage their finances more efficiently. The sight of students coming home on the weekends lugging bagfuls of dirty laundry could become a thing of the past.