By Olga Kharif

Having been a customer at Dublin Cleaners for more than three decades, Jim Kelly has gotten to know the names of the folks at the front desk. But still, every Saturday when he dropped off his dirty clothes at one of the family's five shops in Dublin, Ohio, he always had to include a reminder: lightly starch the shirts, send them back on a hanger.

That slightly annoying requirement was finally abolished this year, when the Dublin chain went high tech. When Kelly walked into the store one day in February, a service person attached a tiny bit of adhesive to his shirts' tails, using a special hot iron. The permanent tag, no larger than a pinkie nail, contained a number that the store's new database software could match up with Kelly's preferences.

So now, whenever Kelly brings in those shirts, the dry cleaner simply scans the tags to get a list of his instructions and ensure that his laundry is handled with extra care. "It's a feel-good kind of thing," Kelly says.

TECH LEADER.  As minor as it sounds, the change is heralding a new era for the stodgy dry-cleaning industry. Comprised of about 30,000 mom-and-pop shops and employing 200,000 people, dry cleaning has seen few major technological changes over the past 50 years. But with the proliferation of information technology, in 5 to 10 years, a dry cleaner might, in fact, look more like a bank than than today's low-tech operations.

Dublin Cleaners is leading the charge, having implemented so many cool technologies that small dry cleaners from as far away as Florida and Michigan come to tour its plant.

Dublin's transformation began when Brian Butler, grandson of the original owner, who opened the business in 1934, decided two years ago to abandon his career in software sales for the family business. He had helped out with everything from deliveries to tax returns since childhood. Now, arriving with his degree in information-systems management, Butler found Dublin's computer system laughable -- and horrifying.

SORTING IT OUT.  Roughly one in every 200 orders contained a mistake, and occasionally, customers' garments disappeared altogether. That may seem insignificant, but the errors add up to a lot of extra cost in an industry that survives on traditionally slim margins. If a shirt arrives folded instead of on a hanger, it essentially has to be recleaned, and if a garment is lost, the dry cleaner must pay for a replacement.

Butler, now 27, decided that new computing technologies were necessary. So Dublin, which has 72 employees, bought special software from Falmouth (Me.)-based Maineline Technology, a small outfit that focuses on the dry-cleaning industry. The software stores customer preferences on thermal tags made by St. Paul-based Computype. Says Joe McCammon, one of Maineline's co-owners, "We're trying to move the industry forward."

Butler also bought an Italian sorting conveyor -- another gem of modern technology used in only five U.S. dry cleaners so far. The conveyor, from a company called Metalprogetti, was deployed in August. The machine's robotic arms assemble customers' orders: When, say, all three of your shirts are ready, the conveyor bags them together -- a huge time saver. At Dublin, three people used to work 10-hour days doing the sorting, Butler says, adding: "It was wearing them out, their backs and their feet were hurting."

PAYBACK TIME.  That's history now -- as are most mistakes. The number of errors has seen a fivefold reduction, Butler estimates. And that's a big deal: About 10% of Dublin's business is tied to corporate clients, like hotels, where managers often send their business in one cleaner's direction. If that manager's order gets messed up and he decides to withdraw his patronage, a big chunk of Dublin's business could leave with it.

Thanks to the conveyor's use, employee hours also fell. The total investment ran around $200,000, which Butler believed would improve productivity and customer service. He now expects the bulk of the technology upgrades to pay for themselves within two years -- and have a lasting effect on Dublin's margins, which Butler says are in line with the industry's average of about 10%.

Butler is just getting started. In February, he began offering online billing to about 2,000 of its delivery-service customers. Already, more than 400 people have enrolled, saving the business money on postage and paper, and allowing faster collections.

"IN THE DUST."  And in the coming year, he is planning to implement a bank-teller-like system that would allow customers to drop off and pick up their dry cleaning 24-7. To drop off your shirt, a customer would put it in a special bag, type instructions on a computer screen, and drop the bag down a chute. To pick it up, it would be a simple matter of scanning the customer's credit card, prompting the conveyor to drops the order into a receiving slot.

"We're going to leave our competitors in the dust," Butler says. With technology changing the face of a once-staid industry, the competition may soon have to spiff up its act.

Kharif is a reporter for BusinessWeek Online in Portland, Ore.