Personal correspondence

Count the linen the customer can actually use

Chief Operating Officer India

A hospital-linen service is measured by the released items it can return in the required mix, not by the weight that has entered a washer.

I completed a diploma in textile processing at Belquvi Textile Institute in May 1997 and joined Merquni Textile Services in Mysuru the following month. My first appointment was as a processing supervisor. I worked under a plant manager and learned to understand a day's work through its sequence rather than through the fastest machine. Material arriving at one stage could be held by a different mix, an equipment interruption or the need for further checks. I could organise my assigned team, but I did not set the company's process standards or approve capital purchases.

I follow the linen through the stages that make the service usable. A washer's rate does not tell me what finishing can release, a piece count does not tell me whether the sizes match the order, and physical possession does not tell me whose stock we may promise. Those conditions should be visible before operations accepts more work.

Operating colleagues: 320; Five heads; ₹46 crore annual operating expense
Institutional customers: 18; Two laundries; non-sterile bed linen and staff garments
Operations experience: 29 years; Textile processing to regional linen-service leadership

The service promise belongs to the completed flow and the customer's actual linen requirement.

I am COO of Pelquvi Clinical Linen Services in Mysuru. We launder non-sterile hospital bed linen and staff garments and manage their return to eighteen institutional customers. We operate two laundries and employed 430 people in March 2026, with ₹106 crore revenue in FY 2025–26. I lead 320 operating colleagues through five heads within ₹46 crore annual operating expense. A ₹5.2 crore capital programme has separate approval. Our service excludes sterile surgical packs and clinical care. Quality head Farida Selquni and qualified customer teams retain the relevant process and release authority; an operating deadline does not override it.

I started in textile processing after a diploma in 1997. Finishing work taught me that throughput at one stage can become a queue at the next. Plant management added responsibility for the full flow, and hospital-linen service made the customer's required mix and ownership conditions more important. I became COO in 2021. My work now connects production, finishing, packing and transport with the promise made to the customer. I am interested in the point where an attractive total stops describing something the service can actually deliver.

The three cases here concern capacity, item mix and ownership. We withdrew a 24-tonne daily sales assumption after a defined operating study showed 14 tonnes through drying and 12 through finishing on the same dry-weight basis and product mix. We corrected a 240-piece pack that contained the wrong distribution of sheet sizes. We removed customer-owned stock from a pool we had described as available for another contract. Each correction narrowed an apparently available answer and required expenditure or delay. None is a claim of sterility, universal process performance or a measured clinical outcome.

Washer capacity did not describe the completed service

For the defined daily mix, 24 tonnes at the washer stage met 14 tonnes of drying capacity and 12 tonnes of finishing capacity. We funded ₹1.8 crore of downstream work before accepting the proposed additional volume.

The correct total concealed the wrong sizes

A 240-piece order required 160 standard and 80 long sheets. A pack with 200 standard and 40 long still contained 240 pieces but left 40 long sheets missing. We repaired picking and verification at a cost of ₹22 lakh.

Stock in our custody was not all ours to allocate

Of 12,000 serviceable pieces in the proposed pool, 4,500 belonged to customers under segregated-stock terms. The company-controlled pool was 7,500; we deferred a new contract while funding 3,000 additional company-owned pieces.

Current focus

I am aligning the operating promise with released output, the item mix and the ownership rights that remain after linen has moved through our sites.

Conversations I welcome

I am open to service-operations mandates and a first outside board contribution involving capacity, asset custody and the limits of an operating commitment.

The leadership record

Trusted with consequential decisions.

Formation

Diploma in Textile ProcessingBelquvi Textile Institute · 1997

Leela withdrew the volume assumption she had supported and showed us the downstream investment and the risk of waiting. That made the commercial decision harder but clearer.

Vinod NarqeliChief Executive Officer, Pelquvi Clinical Linen Services

The full record ↗

Contact

I am open to service-operations mandates and a first outside board contribution involving capacity, asset custody and the limits of an operating commitment.

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