Maintaining the safety and adhering to the high standards of a controlled cleanroom environment requires thorough training and routine inspections. What makes maintaining safety standards such a challenge is the unpredictability of things that can go wrong and ultimately contaminate a cleanroom.

Some examples of common (and strange!) cleanroom hazards include:

Furniture Adjustments

Contaminations have happened in cleanroom environments with something as simple as taking a sterile glove and adjusting your chair. Your glove gets contaminated from the movement of the cylinder either up or down.

Holes in the HEPA

Getting round holes in ceiling HEPA filter, no really, it’s happened. Sometimes employees have taken the mop out of the mop bucket too high and straight up into the HEPA filter.

Tacky Mats

There are a lot of tacky mats out there, but don’t get a tacky mat that is too tacky. There has been an employee that tripped on a tacky mat that was too tacky, fell, and broke their wrist. What about the size of your tack mat? Is your tacky mat too small? If your employee gets one foot on the tacky mat but the other one misses the tacky mat, then is there actually a purpose to the tacky mat? Be careful what you tack for.

Electrical Outlets

Be careful your electrical outlets are properly sealed.  Sometimes, believe it or not, insects can crawl through outlets and then all of a sudden…. VISITORS!

Improper Usage of Face Masks 

Contaminants can be caused by wearing your face mask inside out. How do you know which side faces in or out… or does it actually matter?

Improper Gowning

Employees not having proper gowning training. There are people that wear coveralls in the cleanroom, do they let the arms hit the floor when putting them on? What about the legs hitting the floor? If they are, there are contaminants and particulates attaching themselves to the coverall and coming into your sterile environments.

Double Doors

When you’re building your cleanroom, do you have a double door installed? You should have a double door to bring things in and out, yes, even during the building process to bring equipment in and out of the area.

Pass Through

Do you have to bring a lot of equipment and parts into the cleanroom? Do you have a pass through? A pass through is important to eliminate traffic into the sterile area. Products and supplies can go through the pass through in the form of a wall mounted or floor mounted cart pass through.

Flooring

What type of floor is in your cleanroom? If you’re in a static control environment it does require an ESD floor. If the floor is vinyl it is not an ESD floor. All equipment must be able to be properly grounded to the floor when you’re using ESD carts, chairs, and shoe covers.

Communication Devices

If you need your cell phone, pager, or walkie-talkies in the cleanroom for communication it should not be clipped on the outside of frocks or coveralls. They may fall off and damage the satellite, microchip, etc., if it falls off. There is no need to worry; they make very fashionable… cleanroom fanny packs. This can limit the risk of damage on whatever you are working on.

Beware of all the things that can affect your cleanroom, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, it may make a difference. For more information on cleanroom best practices or how you can acquire cleanroom supplies contact Cleanroom World today!