Dedicated cleanroorm cleaning equipment and products account for a large proportion of cleanroom running costs and will readily continue rising if selection and practice goes unchecked. Karen Rossington, marketing consultant for Contec Inc, looks at how to implement the most cost-effective selection of cleanroom wipes and mops.
In today’s current economic climate, pressure to minimise costs, increase bottom line profits or meet budget targets is more acute than ever. Even with the most innovative of products, manufacturers will not succeed unless the products are appropriately priced, which usually means minimising production costs – including consumables.
Even the smallest cleanroom facility will spend tens of thousands of pounds on cleanroom consumables in a year; in a large facility the consumables spend will run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. McIlvaine’s Cleanroom World Market report put the revenue for cleanroom consumables at US$10.3bn (€8bn) in 2011. This spend is steadily increasing year on year. Gloves are the single biggest consumable purchase, closely followed by wipes.
Taking into consideration all the areas of the cleanroom where wipes are used, it is easy to see why they form such a significant part of the consumables budget. The global spend on cleanroom wipes is currently estimated at $776m (€600m). Wipes are a very visible cleanroom consumable used for cleaning and disinfecting equipment and work surfaces, residue removal, wiping operator gloves, transfer disinfection and the final wipe down of product in pharmaceutical cleanrooms. In semiconductor Fabs wipes are frequently used for the removal of surface contaminants and molecular condensables, to pick up liquid spills, and to clean equipment, load ports and process chambers during preventative maintenance.
Mops can equally be regarded as a special form of wipe used for cleaning large areas and are usually manufactured from similar fabrics but with the addition of foam or lining to make them more sorbent. The addition of mop costs to the figures raises the consumable spend even higher.
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