If you’re standing still, you’re going to be left behind. In the world of critical environments, scientific progress is always in motion, and end products are constantly evolving. The facilities and processes that produce these advancements must inevitably follow suit.

But even if your product portfolio and subsequent processes will remain static for the foreseeable future, your competition will not. Improving quality while reducing costs can help to ensure the ongoing success of any business, especially in the face of competitor innovation.

Critical cleaning products have a significant impact on the processes they support. Making the best selection can have a commensurate effect on your bottom line, producing savings in labor, storage and waste, all while increasing production and overall product quality.   

Reexamining your critical cleaning products can lead to real financial and operational results—here are a few big picture considerations.  

Testing Methods for Critical Cleaning Products

Testing methodology is a great place to begin a reevaluation of your cleaning products.
First, it’s an easy way to gauge overall product quality. Guidelines based on recommended practices from industry leaders like the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST), ASTM International, and the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) are far more likely to produce quality products.  

Secondly, these tests quantify a broad range of intrinsic wiper attributes. There is a prevalent tendency to focus on general cleanroom classifications, process-specific negatives to avoid, and a few touted benefits. But broadening your purchasing criteria to select specific wipes for targeted applications can not only create savings, but also better support processes.

Wiper Attributes Through Testing

Totaling the pros and cons of many testing metrics can yield the ideal combination of performance and cost for specific applications. The typical critical attributes of absorbency, cleanliness, purity and durability can each have overlapping but ultimately distinct performance metrics.

For example, abrasion resistance, elongation, tear resistance, and tensile strength tests all describe different components of overall durability. Depending on the specific application, such as cleaning bottle threads, lining spin bowls, or removing water soluble chemical residuess after a plasma etch, different aspects of durability may be both advantageous and less expensively obtained.

Conclusion

Examining the different aspects of critical wiper attributes can allow you to find the ideal combination of performance and cost. After distancing yourself from the wipers you’re used to buying and determining the ideal properties for specific areas and stages of production, you may find that you’re paying for features that don’t produce direct benefits.

Are you using wipes with borderline cleanliness for the environment? Or are you using the same exceptionally clean wipes for critical applications in supporting areas as well? These could be poor uses of consumables, and those dollars could be better spent increasing product quality.