[labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?

Thu Mar 23 22:09:52 EDT 2023

Hi Jo and all,

Tatiana Pinedo Rivera from the MCN here (Melbourne, Australia). I am a Team
Lead and a Senior Process Engineer. The Melbourne Centre for
Nanofabrication has been ISO9001 certified for at least roughly 8 years (It
might be more, I am not sure when we started), we also follow the LEAN Six
Sigma methodology and we are not a manufacturing company per say:
In fact, we are an open access nanofab facility, co-funded by the
Australian federal government and the 7 Universities of our State
(Victoria) and the CSIRO. The bulk of our users are academic users
(researchers and their PhD students and postdocs), we train them on our
tools and they do their nanofabrication and research work here but we also
do a substantial amount of fee for service and we also have quite a few
industry clients some of which have their residency in our facility in the
early stages of their startup project.

We have a special affiliation with Monash University as our facility is
technically on Monash campus. Monash University has other Research
Platforms somewhat similar to how we function (such as Monash Micro Imaging
platform, Monash X-Ray Platform, Additive Manufacturing platform etc.) and
they are all ISO9001 as well (more recently than us, I believe).

We at MCN see a lot of benefits from having implemented ISO Platform
Quality Management Systems altogether with LEAN methodology and we do not
think that ISO is only for manufacturing companies. ISO and LEAN is helping
us make sure that we are performing better (more efficiently), continuously
attempting to improve how we do things (safety, trainings, nanofab
processes, tool maintenance, back of the house aspects such as
inventorying of our chemicals and consumables). It helps setting high
quality standards and standardise the processes that can be standardised
(such as our trainings (SOPs, training assessment sheets) and tool
maintenance (Total preventive maintenance schedules and SOPs)). It helps us
keep the cleanroom tidy and things running (we have 5S systems to make sure
everything has a place and we use Kanbans to track our stock of consumables
and chemicals so that we never run out of anything and a the same time we
do not end up buying a surplus of items that we do not need, which helps us
with our sustainability goals too). It makes us more efficient and
consistent, it helps us take better care of the instruments and limit tool
downtime. Ultimately, we have standardised processes and we limit waste of
time, resources and money. Of course it is also a big image aspect
particularly with Industry Clients but academic "clients" also appreciate
the professionalism which translates into better "customer service" too. I
know that one common misconception is that having a quality management
system in place might be too rigid for research and hinder innovation and
creativity, but we do not find this to be true at all.

I am not aware of the specifics of how we started our ISO9001 and LEAN
journey as this happened before I joined MCN. I think we had at that time a
Director that came up with this initiative and made it happen. From what I
have heard, it did require a substantial amount of energy at the beginning
but after a while it runs pretty much (almost) on wheels and we would not
do things otherwise now. Our Engineering and Quality Manager and our
General Manager and Facility Manager help maintain our certifications
up-to-date. They all know far more than me about all the technical aspects
of the certifications we have and how we maintain them. If you would like
me to put you in contact with them, I'll be happy to (Bernie might be
reading us :) as he is on this mailing list)

I hope this is useful.

Tatiana

*Tatiana Pinedo Rivera, PhD* (she/her/hers)
Nanolithography and Characterisation Team Leader
Senior Process Engineer

Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication
ANFF Victoria
151 Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3168 Australia

P: +61 (0)3 9905 9660
E: tatiana.pinedo at nanomelbourne.com
W: http://nanomelbourne.com

On Fri, 24 Mar 2023 at 07:24, Howard Northfield <
Howard.Northfield at uottawa.ca> wrote:

>
> I was a test ISO auditor at the past Nortel (telecommunications company)
> during a big push for ISO 9001 certification in the late 1990s, purely to
> be able to market in Europe.
>
> ISO really only demands a trail of record of internal process, it does not
> define process details or quality levels.
>
> Howard
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Paolini,
> Steven <spaolini at cns.fas.harvard.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 22, 2023 4:47 PM
> *To:* Joseph Losby <joseph.losby at ucalgary.ca>; labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <
> labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?
>
> *Attention : courriel externe | external email*
> Joseph,
>    ISO certification is primarily for a manufacturing facility. I don't
> know of any benefit a shared use facility (I'm assuming that's what you
> have) would gain.
> Becoming ISO certified is extremely expensive and disruptive, you must
> also allow annual "audits" to your facility which again are very expensive
> and disruptive.
> Iso Certification, in simple terms is just an accreditation that you do
> what you document and document what you do.
> I remember confronting the CEO of a company that I used to work for and
> asking him if it made the facility any better, his answer was a firm "NO".
> I then inquired as to why we do it and the answer was "Because our
> competition has it".
>   Best of luck,
>    Steve Paolini  Equipment Dood
> Harvard University
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Joseph
> Losby <joseph.losby at ucalgary.ca>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 22, 2023 12:47 PM
> *To:* labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
> *Subject:* [labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?
>
> Hello.
>
> Is your cleanroom facility ISO certified?  What are your reasons for
> having or not having ISO certification?  Are there any particular changes
> you have had to make to your facility to adhere to standards?
>
> The costs appear to be substantial, and we are still deciding whether or
> not we should go this route.
>
> Cheers and thanks for your replies,
> Joe
>
>
> Joseph Losby, PhD.
> Operations Manager, qLab
> Quantum City, University of Calgary
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> labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
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