[labnetwork] on how to impose reasonable consequences for infractions / Fwd: HF storage

Thu Feb 23 11:35:34 EST 2023

Dear friends,

long-time….  But I do enjoy following the feeds.

Savitha, I agree with Michael and offer a suggestion that seemed to work well in past lives:

Revoke nightime access for the offender. (Contact the faculty member before you do this.  They will likely support you and appreciate the approach.)

“I’m sorry you demonstrated that you cannot work unsupervised. Nightime access is revoked so that we can provide additional training and oversight.  You may apply again for off-hours access again in <some period of time, weeks or months, depending on the situation and how much you trust the person otherwise…>

This approach has the following benefits:
• it focuses on a key purpose of the educational / research facility: impactful hands-on experiences, learning in a safe place (they may be fired in industry for this, but here we learn in a safe place)
• nonconfrontational.  Actions lead directly to reasonable consequences without scolding or bitter feelings involved.
• it avoids having the faculty member jump down your throat, because it allows the research to continue
• it only inconveniences the student, and this very much.  The pain of facing the faculty member is quite severe.

All the best to you,

—Ian

Ian R. Harvey, Ph.D.
Director, Miller Advanced Research Solutions
College of Engineering, Applied Science & Technology
Weber State University
Falcon Hill (HAFB West Gate)

https://weber.edu/mars
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-harvey-967422173/ 

633 N Falcon Hills Dr.
Clearfield , UT 84015
801/726-7648 (c)

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Yakimov <yakimom at sunypoly.edu>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] HF storage
Date: February 23, 2023 at 7:07:50 AM MST
To: Savitha P <savithap at iisc.ac.in>, "labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu" <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>

One issue with "automatic removal of access": 
punitive measures are not the best if safety is involved. Especially for minor things, where user may have a small event that didn't lead to serious consequences - but the user may share the problem, get some advice, and some things may improve after all. If user is discouraged from that by automatic punishment, then things work worse overall.

It's a big philosophic question in general but looks like safety actually benefits from a less punishing approach.  Of course, such dilemmas go well beyond cleanroom or chemical safety and experience comes from many industries. I heard a lot of such discussions in aviation safety - and I would call that even more safety-critical business than what we're doing...

Thanks

Mike

_______________________________________________
Michael Yakimov
Research scientist
College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering
SUNY Polytechnic Institute

253 Fuller rd.
Albany NY 12203

Phone: 518-437-8609 lab
e-mail: yakimom at sunypoly.edu <mailto:yakimom at sunypoly.edu>

From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu <mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu>> on behalf of Savitha P <savithap at iisc.ac.in <mailto:savithap at iisc.ac.in>>
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2023 3:32 AM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu> <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] HF storage

Dear All:

Thank you very much for all the suggestions. We have currently incorporated the following as per our space availability.  HF has been segregated and kept in a secondary container so that users will not mistake the same with HCl. Size of Labels on the bottles have been increased for HF only, so that users have another mark for identification.  As per our protocol, all safety incidents at wet etch leads to an automatic removal of access to the cleanroom. The user will be allowed only after a retraining and retest and will be provided access only after a satisfactory drive in.

Regards,
Savitha
From: Jing Guo <jeanne.guo at rice.edu <mailto:jeanne.guo at rice.edu>>
Sent: 16 February 2023 21:41
To: Savitha P <savithap at iisc.ac.in <mailto:savithap at iisc.ac.in>>
Cc: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu> <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] HF storage

External Email

Hi Savitha, 

This is Jing from Rice U Nanofab. Fortunately we have enough space to store HF or BOE in a separate cabinet. HCl is stored with the other acids in the ‘General Acids’ cabinet. Also all HF related processes will be performed in the separate HF wet bench which is a independent bench from other benches. For all of our chemicals, we are using the ’Two-letter’ labelling system which I learned from Utah NanoFab a long time ago. All chemical bottles, storage cabinets and wet benches have a ’two letter’ sticker on. All HF bottles have the ‘HF’ stickers. HCl or other Acids have the ‘GA’ stickers (general acid). The stickers have to match to the cabinets and benches when you need to store or use them. 

For very limited lab or storage space, the simple solution I can think about will be separate secondary containers with different colors, and put different color stickers on the bottle caps. Also put a big color chart beside the storage cabinets and benches to clarify which is which.

I totally agree with Tony, no matter how great foolproof your system is, there will still be someone making mistakes. Wish our system can provide some idea to help. 

Best,
Jing  
---------------------------------------
Jing Guo Ph.D.
Research Scientist
SEA Cleanroom (SST 017)
Rice University
Houston, TX 
jeanne.guo at rice.edu <mailto:jeanne.guo at rice.edu>
713-348-8227

> On Feb 15, 2023, at 6:19 AM, Savitha P <savithap at iisc.ac.in <mailto:savithap at iisc.ac.in>> wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> We recently had a couple of occasions where users had mistakenly used Hydrofluoric acid in place of Hydrochloric acid during RCA cleaning. To avoid this, one of the suggestions we have received from our OLSEH is to store HF in a different coloured bottle (currently all acids are stored in white translucent polypropylene bottles which are properly labelled). Accordingly, we had considered storing HF in opaque, brown colour HDPE bottles. However, that was not deemed acceptable by a section of users saying bottles should be translucent so that acid level inside can be judged.
> 
> Could you please let me know how small quantities of HF are stored in your respective fabs. Is there any regulation governing storage of HF, so that we could implement the same.
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> Savitha
> 
> Dr. Savitha P
> Chief Operating Officer
> National Nanofabrication Centre
> Centre for Nanoscience and Engineering
> Indian Institute of Science
> Bangalore - 560012
> India.
> Ph. +91 80 2293 3319
> www.cense.iisc.ac.in <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cense.iisc.ac.in__;!!BuQPrrmRaQ!jwbzV_ZvSyB1Q5acEoqn2bdk1V1F959zmmHlnmL0yfvnJJ7KjK-9pQMpfGdp8hSSHKhA-Mmu9UAZSVxRNrPjWiAe3he9vQ$&source=gmail-imap&ust=1677768487000000&usg=AOvVaw3NC4mqv91cXUAHBtrHA4UF>
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