Olivia Friett recently had the opportunity to attend i-team Global’s immersive launch, in Dublin, of the SAFE-T-product family – a suite of battery-powered floor cleaning solutions designed for cleanrooms. European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer spoke to Ryan McClymonds, global technical director about cleanroom challenges and how these products help to tackle them.
i-team Global
What specific cleanroom challenges do you aim to address with the new SAFE-T range?
The biggest challenge for keeping cleanrooms hygienically clean is labour and time. In the pharmaceutical sector, including in laboratories where stringent contamination control is needed, floor cleaning has relied heavily on manual wiping and mopping. I’ve seen this many times, where people are down on their hands and knees manually cleaning the floors. So, for us, this range is about saving businesses time and labour costs, whilst also adhering to strict cleanroom standards.
Is there anything else like this out there?
This is the world’s first battery-powered cleanroom floor cleaning range. There are other cleanroom machines available; but they do not provide the same level of floor cleaning performance for cross-contamination areas, and they are not battery powered. This means you have a cable hanging across the room - which leads to other issues including set-up time and safety. Machinery can also be heavy to use, whereas this new range is ergonomically designed to improve comfort and reduce physical strain.
Could you explain the importance of machinery having so many layers of filtration, especially in the pharma industry?
So, in pharma, machines with efficient filtration systems are a very important thing because, in any cleanroom environment, you have to control the risk of airborne particle contamination. These particles can carry bacteria and other contaminants, and if that gets into medicine or cosmetics, product batches can be compromised. It’s a very serious issue. That’s why our SAFE-T-VAC has a special filtration system, with Ultra-Low Particulate Air (ULPA) filters on both the inlet and outlet and eight total layers of filtration. The cloth dust bag has five layers in itself and features a plastic holder and silicone closure mechanism, to ensure that dust particles don’t escape from the machine. The ULPA 15 filters are cross woven to create a mesh, to ensure exceptional air purity.
You talked about the need for efficient running time and charge time. How and why is it so important for you to try and match those up?
Any downtime costs money, so the quicker cleaning can be done, the sooner production can resume. Our goal at i-team, is ensuring all our innovations help make processes faster, cleaner, greener, safer, and better.
Faster charging time is important because other machines that may include batteries use built-in, non-removable batteries and are charged by plugging a cord into a wall socket. This means when the battery runs out, you have to bring it to the wall, plug it in, and then wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We enable you to achieve 24/7 clean by using swappable batteries for instant continued use. Meanwhile, the removed battery can be recharged at the same time.
How did you address cleanroom regulatory issues?
The SAFE-T product family is designed to meet the stringent standards for cleanroom environments, including an exhaust output which is certified to the rigorous ISO standards for these controlled environments. It's all about extensive laboratory testing. Our focus at i-team, is being a “show me” company. Companies don't want ‘tell us’ ideas, they want effective solutions that resolve real-world challenges. We design and build our innovations in-house. This includes having our own chemical laboratory, an electronic testing laboratory, and lots of other expertise including detailed preliminary testing, so that we can innovate fast.
When we developed this range, we tested for factors like corrosion, electronics and electrostatic discharge (ESD) discharge in our own laboratory. Then we send our products to an independent lab to be tested and certified to ensure they meet the meticulous ISO standards for these controlled environments.