[labnetwork] Starting Back Up

[Carsen Kline]

Hi Ron and all,

SNF has been in hibernation since March 16th, and many of our team members have had a lot of time to work on "New Normal" procedures. It's clear that social distancing is going to be with us for many months to come, so we need to rethink our operations in these terms if we're to convince the administration to let us start up again after the shelter-in-place order is lifted.

Using door entry and equipment login data, we've identified high traffic flow times and areas. This has led us to create a second gowning entrance to thin out traffic in/out of the the main door. We are going to ease our gowning protocol slightly to speed up the process and get people into the lab faster. For us this means no cleanroom boots, just shoe covers. Garments will have to be in individual bags so they don't touch each other. We're also establishing max capacity in various areas and satellite labs. Control will be visual and will rely on lab members' awareness and thoughtfulness since we don't have a way to meter occupancy with our key card system.

As for lab consumables, we are going to be in the same boat as everyone else. We donated nearly all of our masks and nitrile gloves to local hospitals, so we're down to latex (which they didn't want) and the prospect of making our own masks until supplies are available again. We have a couple of options, both of which use cleanroom wipes and either snaps (to attach to the hood) or rubber bands to go around ears.

Remote learning tools will be key to our training programs, including Zoom and TeamViewer where possible. Getting any of our tool computers on the network is a challenge since they can't be encrypted or modernized. We have an extra challenge with tool computers that can't accommodate networked remote access, such as our furnaces and older etchers. Installing the infrastructure and redesigning the training materials will take a long time, but some of this work could justifiably be done during our lab patrols as it enables remote learning.

Eager to hear more of your plans.

Carsen

Carsen Kline
Lab Operations Manager
Stanford Nanofabrication Facility
https://snf.stanford.edu


________________________________
From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Reger, Ronald K <rreger at purdue.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2020 5:09 AM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: [labnetwork] Starting Back Up


Dear Colleagues,



Here at Purdue for the last 3 weeks we have severely curtailed our research efforts at the Birck Nanotechnology Center due to the pandemic, to the point that only a fraction of our facility is being used for projects deemed critical (related to COVID-19 or national interest).  We are preparing to ramp back up once the stay-at-home orders are lifted and this ramp-up presents some unique challenges.  We’re anticipating potential delays in orders from suppliers as they ramp up and we expect that social distancing will still be the norm so process & equipment training will need to be handled differently. We’re just now starting to plan for returning to a full research operation and we’re wondering if you all are developing similar plans?  It would be great if we could share some thoughts and ideas in our community.



Thanks very much,

Ron



Ron Reger

Engineering Manager

Birck Nanotechnology Center | Room 2289 |

Office:  765.494.6667 | Email: rreger at purdue.edu<mailto:rreger at purdue.edu>

Wiki:  https://wiki.itap.purdue.edu/display/BNCWiki

iLabs:  https://purdue.ilabsolutions.com/homepage/

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