Q&A with Carson O’Connor
Our customers have many questions for us regarding cleanrooms and the services MPW offers to ensure that cleanrooms—and their staff—operate with maximum efficiency. MPW Senior Project Manager and resident cleanroom expert Carson O’Connor answers our customers’ questions:
Cleanroom Deep Cleans:
Q: Please define a “cleanroom.”
Carson O’Connor: A cleanroom is defined by the customer and the type of product they’re creating following an ISO program. It’s a controlled environment that minimizes the presence of airborne particles, contaminants and pollutants to provide an exceptional level of cleanliness with established KPIs that must be met.
Cleanrooms are essential to industries such as semiconductor manufacturing, EV/OEMs, pharmaceuticals, battery and technological research, where even the smallest particles will severely degrade the quality and functionality of products.
Cleanrooms are classified based on the number and size of particles permitted per volume of air, ranging in ISO Class 1-9. They are equipped with specialized filtration systems, including HEPA filters, to maintain air quality and entry and exit procedures that require personnel to wear protective clothing to prevent contamination.
Q: What is the necessary PPE?
CO: It’s full coverage for highly sensitive production areas and less for moderate areas. Example: full body hooded Tyvek suit, safety glasses, mask, cuffed/taped at the wrists, gloves, cuffed/taped at the ankles with booties—but there’s also a PAPR. It’s a hood with a battery pack and a filtration system on it that is used as another level of PPE.
You can use the battery pack that’s forced air, or a decontamination suit that hooks into an air supplied system. That’s Level One type biological/hazardous PPE.
Q: Please define “super critical cleaning.”
CO: It’s cleaning that encompasses the production area, not just the equipment—cleaning the room around your product. The ISO 9001 deals with the machinery, but super critical encompasses the room surrounding it—walls, floors, light switches, air ducts, piping, logistical equipment, everything. All PPE has to be disposed of in the proper manner according to a certain process set by the ISO standard the manufacture is following.
Managing Inventory:
Q: What is the inventory we would be managing?
CO: We can do whatever is requested by the customer from managing their filters and cleanroom supplies (example: if they need clean room dress out supplies). MPW can also manage a full MRO program—maintenance, repair and operation equipment, anything they would need for the daily production needs. We also can manage all line side delivery of the production supplies in a JIT process.
It could be as big as having all their repair equipment, filtration, manufacturing supplies, PPE supplies, or it could be as minimal as managing the filtration or stocking PPE supplies.
Q: Will we be ensuring that everyone entering the cleanroom goes through the proper PPE steps?
CO: For our team members, yes. When contractors come in, we’re there when they start up their shift in the cleanroom and audit everyone as they are dressing in to enter and help them out if we observe any deviation from protocol.
We can do a cleanroom dress-out audit. But also, when they’re coming out of the cleanroom we’re making sure that items are disposed of properly. Different items are disposed of in very specific ways to make sure it’s done correctly.
Q: Please provide details on the air quality audits. How often do we do them, and what are we looking for?
CO: Yes, we can do air, humidity, dew point audits if requested and with as many data points, locations and different areas they would lie. We could supply the necessary equipment, and we can put together an audit list to send out to the customer on a daily basis.
Managing Filtration:
Q: What are the filters we would be managing?
CO: There are all types of air filters from general intake fresh air in office areas, all the way down to the HEPA ultra filtration in production rooms. Also, we can manage any type of water filters. MPW has sock filters, membrane filters and filters for hydraulics. If there’s any sort of air, water or liquid filtration, we can manage the procurement and inventory control
Nearly every filtration system has some type of meter or gauge that measures airflow—a magnehelic reading that measures the airflow in front and behind the filters, for example. It gives you a pressure differential that will tell you if the filters are clogged or not. Everything will be monitored according to flow rate and reported on filter life expectancy, change out schedule and inventory lead times.
Q: Please describe “high level production cleaning” in the cleanroom (alcohol swabs, advanced Q-Tips, etc.).
CO: A lot of the machinery has very delicate and sensitive production tooling (battery, microchip, pharmaceutical). Different tools, sensors, scales, optical sensors and contact points will get some build up from the process, and MPW will go in and clean it with Q-Tips, solvent, alcohol wipes…etc. or a swab to clean a camera lens. MPW will make sure to use an approved product and method so no residue will be left behind.
Pre-Commissioning:
Q: Please describe our pre-commissioning process.
CO: The pre-commissioning is the phase where construction has finished, and we go in and clean the area and production equipment. You can do it before install, and once the install is done we come back and do another cleaning before commissioning begins.
Q: How soon would the pre-commissioning process begin?
CO: It could be during construction, after construction, while they’re building their rooms, all the way up until the first and last machine is handed over to a commissioning team.
Q: How many equipment cleanings can a customer expect from us during the pre-commissioning process?
CO: Three is a general schedule—we clean equipment when it arrives, during install and then after install. When equipment comes in, it’s usually contained in multi-layers of wrap for shipping, so as it’s brought into the building, we would unwrap it, wipe down anything that may have gotten through the first wrap, and then it goes to another area.
It’s the pre-install, the install, but also doing minor checks and cleaning during all of the install process and going through at the very end and doing the full pre-commissioning once it’s handed over to the commissioning team, and then another deep clean can be requested to be completed before production starts.
Q: In what ways will we create a partnership with the customer relating to cleanroom management in general?
CO: The biggest thing with any partnership is always communication. What are you doing? Where are you at? When are you going to do it? How many people do you have on site? We offer a lot of BI tools so customers can go into a portal and see everything that’s going on at the site—the scope of work, when it’s going to be done, what has been done and before and after pictures.
But then also the fiduciary responsibility that we have for our customers finances. With the Power BIs we can say here’s your PO spend, here’s what it’s costing you a day, a week, a month for us to be here on site. Transparency and communication start from the very beginning.