Patent ID: 7268313

Claim:
A method for processing garments, comprising: (a.) receiving one or more deliveries of soiled garments, each delivery corresponding to a route, each garment being associated with a route; (b.) washing the received garments; (c.) configuring the washed garments for processing, each configured garment being associated with an identifier; (d.) placing the configured garments on a garment conveyor; (e.) transporting the configured garments along the garment conveyor; (f.) reading the identifiers to determine the route associated with each garment; (g.) transporting the configured garments to storage where the configured garments are stored based on route wherein storage comprises an accumulator operatively configured such that selected garments in storage are subject to being automatically routed bi-directionally between storage and a plurality of processing locations; (h.) determining the route sequence of stored configured garments within a target route; (i.) sorting the stored configured garments for the target route in accordance with the determined route sequence to form-sequenced configured garments; (j.) loading the sequenced configured garments onto a delivery vehicle for delivery, each vehicle corresponding to a route; and (k.) delivering the sequenced configured garments.