Considerations for Open Cleanroom Design

Considerations for Open Cleanroom Design

Open concept offices are the new thing in corporate design, and the idea of the open workspace is expanding into cleanrooms and laboratories as well. There are many benefits to open concept workspaces, like increased transparency and cooperation, but also some downsides, like the noise level. Besides these factors, there are additional considerations for open cleanroom design, due to the nature of the processes and requirements of cleanrooms. If you’re interested in open cleanroom design, here’s what you should consider.

 

Benefits of Open Cleanroom Design

 

Transparency and Collaboration

In an open laboratory workspace, everyone can see what everyone else is doing. This can mean that chemists and product engineers are working together in the same space. These different groups can interact with each other in an open setting, offering each other ideas and solutions based on their unique insight and expertise. You’ll also get transparency across teams, so that everyone is aware of what’s going on and what other teams are working on or exploring.

Flexibility

An open floor plan allows for the layout of your cleanroom to change as your organization’s needs and applications change. New equipment can be added to accommodate a new process, additional workspaces can be added for new staff, and furniture and equipment can be rearranged to best serve the needs of the cleanroom at the time.

Cost Savings

Open concept cleanrooms can save money in three major ways: they can save space in your facilities, freeing it up for other needs; they allow teams to share equipment, resources, and support staff because they are co-located; and have lower construction costs than creating smaller, application-specific cleanroom spaces.

 

Disadvantages of Open Cleanroom Design

 

Ventilation and Filtration Challenges

With the larger space that open cleanrooms present, getting ventilation and filtration right so that the space is adequately ventilated and meets particulate contamination standards can be difficult. 

Loud Equipment

Noisy equipment can create a lot of noise pollution in an open cleanroom, and that noise may be disruptive to sensitive processes as well as disruptive to personnel.

Sensitive Work and Processes

Some processes and tasks are extremely sensitive or are at great risk for factors like cross-contamination. These processes need dedicated space, and likely have more stringent cleanroom standards and procedures that other cleanroom applications.

 

Solutions for Open Cleanroom Design

One way to solve some of the challenges of an open cleanroom is modular design. The flexibility of modular cleanrooms allow for changes to the layout of the space as needed. For applications that need dedicated space because of the delicate nature of the processes, a modular design allows you to create that necessary space within the open cleanroom. Soundproof modular rooms for noisy equipment can solve the noise issue in the otherwise open space.

 

Angstrom Technology can design a cleanroom to meet all your requirements and design considerations. Speak with one of our design engineers to get started.

Why You Should Hire A Professional for Cleanroom Maintenance

Why You Should Hire A Professional for Cleanroom Maintenance

Cleanroom maintenance is an important aspect of running an efficient and effective cleanroom. Since cleanroom operation can be costly, from the specialized design and construction, equipment, and energy requirements, you may look at maintenance as a place to cut costs by keeping it in house. But there are some good reasons to leave cleanroom installation and maintenance to the pros. Here’s why you should hire a professional for cleanroom maintenance.

 

Professional cleanroom companies have crucial expertise

The company who designed your cleanroom is going to understand it even better than you and your employees do, and will, therefore, be able to perform all necessary maintenance activities with ease and efficiency. Additionally, a cleanroom company that specializes in cleanroom design and maintenance is going to have years of experience that will ensure that all necessary maintenance is performed on schedule and that any issues are identified and addressed in a timely manner.

 

Cleanroom maintenance is more than just equipment testing

Maintaining your cleanroom environment takes more than just equipment testing (which is already a lot, we know). Cleanroom maintenance also includes ensuring that there’s the right setup for the tasks and activities performed in the cleanroom and that all necessary supplies from gowns to testing equipment, are on hand at all times. A cleanroom maintenance provider can ensure that you have all necessary testing supplies in good supply, as well as providing project-specific equipment and storage to meet your application and classification requirements.

 

Cleanroom maintenance is too important to get wrong

If you’re not maintaining your cleanroom properly, you’re going to run into all kinds of issues. This could be failing to meet your desired ISO classification because of particulate contamination, equipment issues, old filters in need of replacement, or other problems. If you’re not adequately maintaining your cleanroom, not only will you fail to meet your classification requirements, which could put you in legal trouble or lose you important clients, you could also be energy inefficient. This is an issue not just because of our responsibility to protect the environment but because energy costs money. And wasting energy by faulty equipment running your cleanroom inefficiently is simply wasting money.

 

Not only do we design and install cleanrooms, we also service them. If your cleanroom is in need of maintenance, contact Angstrom Technology.