Production continues despite a catastrophic failure of an aging Trichloroethylene cleaning system.
Layton Technologies were completing a project to establish a baseline level of cleanliness for a client – a high end optical manufacturer, which included consolidating a multitude of cleaning processes developed organically over many years. The client needed to simplify and streamline their operation to dramatically reduce the handling and movement of component parts both before and after cleaning. Furthermore, minute defects in the high cost end products were undetectable until the final testing procedure resulting in unacceptable costs and time delays due to re-work. Essentially the project objective was to remove the need for re-work by establishing appropriate cleanliness levels via an
independent testing facility to determine the acceptable levels of particulates and hydrocarbons prior to assembly and test. This would establish an appropriate, consistent and validated cleaning process through documented data collection and control measurement.
Before the project could be completed disaster struck and the clients aging trichloroethylene cleaning system suffered a catastrophic failure bringing their production to a full stop. Fortunately Layton Technologies have a strictly controlled trials and demonstration facility. It houses systems capable of utilising all major solvent and aqueous cleaning chemistries and therefore were able to accommodate the client’s component cleaning on a contract basis for a period of three months until the new cleaning equipment and regime could be established at the client’s facilities. This enabled the client to continue to fulfil all of their obligations to their customers and to meet their production targets.
