Often considered to be a part of secondary processes, storage and transportation of materials and products are of considerable significance for a business’s manufacturing processes, especially for those dealing with high-precision and sensitive items that need cleanroom conditions to be used or processed.
All of these sensitive components need transport that satisfies the high storage conditions criteria. This has led to increased requirements, particularly for high-tech companies and suppliers where sensors and other susceptible components are used.
Storage
The vital components can be impaired soon upon being placed in ambient air conditions. It is vital to remember. Harmful particles may be collected on surfaces and at longer storage in clean rooms. Or, moisture and oxygen in the air can harm sensitive materials.
- The use of storage systems guarantees the conditions of cleanroom for sensitive items and materials stored. In closed circulation, the fan filter modules have an internal airflow. The cleanroom conditions in the storage area are managed by this method.
- In case oxygen and humidity are harmful to equipment, technical components or materials, it would be best to store them in a nitrogen-enriched atmosphere.
Optimum conditions can be produced with nitrogen for storing critical parts because their consistency lies in high purity and low moisture.
Transport
At some point, all products and items leave the factory. All too many items are cleaned and stored in unclean packaging materials in cleanroom conditions. This reduces the tremendous work of proper production in the cleanroom to nothing.
- There are sufficient clean packaging materials in the market, or old materials that are filtered by skilled cleaning methods would be enough to be used.
- Another important feature of transport in cleanroom environments can be seen repeatedly: film wrapping is only folded and not sealed. This results in insidious contamination due to ‘breathing’ of the packaging due to shipping activities and changes in air pressure. However, There’s no problem with foil sealed bags.
- It should be assured that these bags are washed externally before unpacking the goods (cutting the bags open) in order to avoid delayed contamination of the substance by the outer shell of the package.
The whole process chain has to be taken into account for zero-fault output in properly clean production. Thus, clean packing, storage and transport (logistics) are just as critical as the rest of the process chain. Unfortunately, this is often too frequently overlooked, and previous work steps lose their effect and the product its quality.