[labnetwork] Cleanroom garments - Costs escalating

[Philip Infante]

Hi Vince,

We just moved to a new supplier that has various grading levels for the washed garments. The default started at the most stringent and we had to request adjusting to a lower grading scale. (We can live with residual staining on our garments as long as it is not a particle generator) You might want to explore if that is an option with your supplier. Our suits also get swapped out after a set number of wash cycles, so it is only a matter of time before stained garments get automatically cycled out of use in our inventory.

An online tracking system to see what is being laundered and replaced is also a very useful tool in understanding your usage pattern.

Phil Infante
Cornell Nanoscale Facility
Cornell University
250 Duffield Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
607-254-4926

On May 12, 2017, at 8:58 AM, Luciani, Vincent (Fed) <Vincent.Luciani at nist.gov<mailto:Vincent.Luciani at nist.gov>> wrote:

Hello LabNetwork,

A new problem has come up for us and we have not been able to resolve the issue with the vendor.  The contractor is adamant in discarding and charging us for stained or damaged garments at a startling frequency.  The cost associated with this have become prohibitively expensive and prominent on my radar screen.
I now have an opportunity to rethink that arrangement which is a fleeting opportunity for me simply due to the bureaucracy and lead time associated with the government acquisition requirements.

Current practice:
Our cleanroom is class 100 and since our beginning (10 years ago),  we have gone the conventional route of contracting with a vendor to supply and launder our Gore-Tex garments (bunny suits, hoods, booties, frocks).  Currently, we collect all garments every Friday so users get a fresh set weekly.  We have about 100 different users weekly so swap out about 100 hoods/suits/booties per week.

So, I will take this opportunity to reach out to the collective wisdom of the LabNetwork to see how others have contained the costs of cleanroom garments.

Thanks,

Vince


Vincent K. Luciani
NanoFab Manager
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology<http://www.cnst.nist.gov/>
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, MS 6201
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-6200 USA
+1-301-975-2886






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