<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Hi Jo and all,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">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:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">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.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">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). </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">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. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">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) </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">I hope this is useful.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Tatiana</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><b>Tatiana Pinedo Rivera, PhD</b> <font size="1">(she/her/hers)</font><br></font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><font size="1">Nanolithography and Characterisation Team Leader</font><br><span style="font-size:x-small">Senior Process Engineer </span></font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><font size="1"><br>Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication </font></font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:11px">ANFF Victoria<br>151 Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3168 Australia <br><br></span><span style="font-size:11px">P: +61 (0)3 9905 9660</span><span style="font-size:11px"><br>E: <a href="mailto:tatiana.pinedo@nanomelbourne.com" target="_blank">tatiana.pinedo@nanomelbourne.com</a><br>W: <a href="http://nanomelbourne.com" target="_blank">http://nanomelbourne.com</a></span></font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><img width="200" height="75" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4ytSAjpwpj8eOr9k3aCB9emsePYyZe-8KeTQyE2N5UKEY1qmPzAi4fW8R-6apLMUN-VeNSrTuE"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 24 Mar 2023 at 07:24, Howard Northfield <<a href="mailto:Howard.Northfield@uottawa.ca">Howard.Northfield@uottawa.ca</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg5025288827076747055">
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<span style="font-size:12pt;margin:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">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.</span></div>
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ISO really only demands a trail of record of internal process, it does not define process details or quality levels.</div>
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Howard</div>
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<div id="m_5025288827076747055divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> labnetwork <<a href="mailto:labnetwork-bounces@mtl.mit.edu" target="_blank">labnetwork-bounces@mtl.mit.edu</a>> on behalf of Paolini, Steven <<a href="mailto:spaolini@cns.fas.harvard.edu" target="_blank">spaolini@cns.fas.harvard.edu</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, March 22, 2023 4:47 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Joseph Losby <<a href="mailto:joseph.losby@ucalgary.ca" target="_blank">joseph.losby@ucalgary.ca</a>>; <a href="mailto:labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu" target="_blank">labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu</a> <<a href="mailto:labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu" target="_blank">labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?</font>
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<div style="font-size:9pt;font-family:calibri;color:rgb(255,66,51)"><b>Attention : courriel externe | external email</b></div>
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Joseph,</div>
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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.</div>
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Becoming ISO certified is extremely expensive and disruptive, you must also allow annual "audits" to your facility which again are very expensive and disruptive.</div>
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Iso Certification, in simple terms is just an accreditation that you do what you document and document what you do.</div>
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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".</div>
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Best of luck,</div>
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Steve Paolini Equipment Dood</div>
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Harvard University</div>
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<div id="m_5025288827076747055x_divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b> labnetwork <<a href="mailto:labnetwork-bounces@mtl.mit.edu" target="_blank">labnetwork-bounces@mtl.mit.edu</a>> on behalf of Joseph Losby <<a href="mailto:joseph.losby@ucalgary.ca" target="_blank">joseph.losby@ucalgary.ca</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, March 22, 2023 12:47 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu" target="_blank">labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu</a> <<a href="mailto:labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu" target="_blank">labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [labnetwork] Is your facility ISO certified?</font>
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Hello.</div>
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Is your cleanroom facility ISO certified? <span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">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?</span></div>
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The costs appear to be substantial, and we are still deciding whether or not we should go this route.</div>
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Cheers and thanks for your replies,</div>
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Joe</div>
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<span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10pt;color:rgb(102,102,102)">Joseph Losby, PhD.</span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;color:rgb(102,102,102)">Operations Manager, qLab</span></font></div>
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<span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10pt;color:rgb(102,102,102)">Quantum City, </span><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10pt;color:rgb(102,102,102)">University of Calgary</span></div>
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