[labnetwork] FW: Clean Room Garment Services

[Weaver, John R]

Keith -

First, it is very worthwhile to use a cleanroom laundry service rather than trying to clean the garments yourself.  The cost of setup and maintenance of the equipment makes it worthwhile only if you are laundering massive quantities of garments.  Without the right equipment and filtration on the dryers you will introduce large quantities of particles - mostly organics - into your cleanroom.

That said, it is really easy to get "scalped" by cleanroom laundry suppliers.  Some of them are straightforward and honest, others are highly dishonest.  The dishonest ones will set a low per-garment price and make up the difference (and more) in lost-garment charges, extra fees, etc.  Be very careful how you word your contract and what happens with "missing" garments.  If you rent garments, consider garment lifetime and the end-of-cycle value of the garment.  I had one company attempt to sell me a contract where the garments maintained their value forever and I had to pay the full garment price to end the lease - what I called "rent to never own."  Realistically, a garment depreciates its full value over three years.

I have always found it most cost-effective to purchase the garments from the garment manufacturer and contract with the cleanroom laundry for cleaning only - called "customer-owned goods (COG) in laundry jargon.  If you can't afford the capital outlay, you can rent the garments but you need to be very careful about the wording of the contract, as mentioned above.

A good laundry will supply you with particle data on their cleanroom - the folding/packaging area is critical - and more importantly particle count data on garments after drying.  The Helmke Drum test is the industry standard and gives good, repeatable results.  I also recommend a periodic (annual or every-other-year) audit of their facility.  They should be able to show you good SPC data regarding their cleanliness, both of laundered goods and the room.  Also look at their sorting methods and the way they eliminate cross-contamination between facilities.

I sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but inventory control is the key to dealing with a laundry.  Make sure that you know how many garments you are shipping out and receiving until you have established a trust with the laundry, then audit the shipments periodically (I recommend monthly).

I've worked with a number of major laundries over my years in industry, and chose Alsco Cleanroom Services (formerly American Cleanroom Garments (ACG) on setting up the facility at Purdue.  They have served us well, and we recently renewed their contract.

I also use them to launder my cleanroom-cleaning materials, such as cleanroom mops.  That is very cost-effective.

Please let me know if you need further information and/or details.  I've been through the ringer with cleanroom laundries (pun intended) and ended up saving tens of thousands of dollars in a production facility by taking the loopholes out of the contract and ending up with a program that was fair to both companies, mine and the laundry.

John

John R. Weaver
Facility Manager
Birck Nanotechnology Center
Purdue University
(765) 494-5494
jrweaver at purdue.edu

From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Keith Bradshaw
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:00 PM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: [labnetwork] Clean Room Garment Services

We have been using G&K for our clean room garment service for five years.

They were recently take over, and so we are taking a fresh look at how we handle laundry.

 How have other labs handled laundry?

What services have you used?

Is it worthwhile doing it yourself?  We have  80 smocks and shoe pairs per week .

Cordially,

Keith


Keith Bradshaw

972-883-2099

RL 10

University of Texas at Dallas Clean Room

NSERL building

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20091202/ec5ae377/attachment.html>