[labnetwork] Cleanroom Garments - summary

[Luciani, Vincent (Fed)]

Hello All,

Thanks for all the great responses.  I very briefly summarized them in the table below.

Lab

Solution

Comments

NIST CNST NanoFab

Laundry service

Cycled weekly, significant problem with replacement cost, about 100 sets/week

University of Louisville

Self-laundered

No significant problems

University of Wisconsin

Self-laundered

Owns their garments laundered in their HEPA filtered washer and dryer

University of CA, Berkeley

Tyvek

User replaces their own regularly

Cornell Nanoscale Facility

Laundry service

Had a problem, reduced inspection criteria to control replacement costs

Draper Labs

Laundry service

60 users.  Vendor offered insurance that proved cost effective

University of Delaware

Laundry service

Cycled out every two weeks, also some problems with cost of replacing damaged goods

University of Washington

Laundry service

Had a similar experience to NIST.  Switched vendors and it got better.

UCSB Nanofabrication Facility

Laundry service

Large volume.  Found better, cheaper service from a local small business instead of the big guys

University of Pennsylvania

Laundry service

Suffering similar experience as NIST.  Working with vendor to try to control costs.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Laundry service

Switched to Alltex fiber suits.  Just as clean as Gore-Tex

University of Utah

Laundry service

Owns their garments, laundered by contractor every two weeks.



I am not sure what we will do yet as we are trying to negotiate with the vendor.  We reduced to the lowest inspection criteria but are still having problems, for example booties with a piece of tape stuck to them pulled as defective, then it takes them 8 weeks to replace it.
We now require all rejected garments be returned to us for inspection.  We then inspect all discarded garments ourselves in order to train the vendor on what constitutes a defect.  It is a painful process.  Disposable garments are in our future until and if we can find a better solution.


Thanks again,
Vince
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