Original Date: 10/07/2002
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

The clean room facility at General Tool Company provides an additional capability that is unusual for a medium- sized, job shop company. The size and material handling capabilities combined with the ability to modify the facility for potential future requirements makes this an exceptional facility.

General Tool Company (GTC) needed an in-house clean area for a project with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The requirements for this clean room were unusual due to the sizes and weights of the parts to be put through the cleaning, assembling, and packaging processes. GTC had a Class 10,000 certified clean room facility built specifically for the LLNL project. The clean room facility consists of three rooms: a wet room, a dry room, and an assembly room. These rooms facilitate the final cleaning, drying, and assembling of the parts. The wet room is 16 feet by 18 feet with a 12-foot ceiling, equipped with a 2,000 psi pressure washer, and process water and cleaning solutions available. The dry room is 15 feet by 16 feet and also has a 12-foot ceiling. The wet room is connected to the dry room via sliding glass doors. There is a one-ton monorail crane that spans both rooms to enable the transport of parts between the two rooms. Finally, the assembly room is 32 feet by 34 feet with a 15-foot ceiling, and is equipped with a 2-ton boom crane. This room is also equipped with a ventilation hood, scale, and centrifuge for mixing glue and other products.

Connected to these three rooms are a gown room, staging area (a clean area with high efficiency particulate arrester airflow), and an airlock area to remove the bagged and finished assemblies. The gown room is 8 feet by 12 feet with an 8-foot ceiling, the staging area is 24 feet by 25 feet with a 12-foot ceiling, and the airlock area is 10 feet by 12 feet. Adjacent to the clean rooms, and as a complement to them, are acid and rinse tanks for a cleaning process used prior to moving parts into the clean room. Space is available for additional tanks or processes, if needed for special customer specifications or requirements. The clean rooms operate at less than Class 10,000, and can easily and quickly be converted to Class 1000 or Class 100 depending on the project size and customer needs. The worst readings taken, at rest, during the certification process were 1,673 ppm, for a .5 micron particulate size.

The clean room provides an additional capability that is unusual for a medium-sized, job shop company. The ultra- clean environment with control of airflow, pressure, humidity, temperature, and filtration give GTC an avenue for future business beyond the scope of most, if not all, job shop companies. GTC is willing to bring specialty processes in-house to support its customer’s unique needs and demanding projects.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.