The holidays are here and with them a buzz of activity. However, for various reasons, some businesses and industries lay low during the height of the holiday season. Some are not busy during the holidays, some recognize it as a prime time to give their usually busy employees some much-deserved time off, and some use it to prepare for the coming year.
Spring is usually the season most associated with a thorough cleaning, but when it comes to cleanrooms, the holiday season is the best time. When cleanrooms are left unaddressed during extended holidays, they can become soiled. This downtime is a perfect time to bring in an outside team to scrub your cleanroom in preparation for the post-holiday season work.
How a Holiday Cleanroom Cleaning Benefits Your Business
When operating a cleanroom, it's important to minimize downtime. However, downtime is inevitable, so it's best to use your cleanroom's planned downtime to ensure unplanned shutdowns don't happen.
1. It Eliminates Cleaning Blind Spots
No matter how stringently your employees follow cleanroom protocols, there are bound to be blind spots. While these blind spots may not result in immediate contamination, they can lead to future problems. It's important to schedule an annual or bi-annual professional cleaning for your cleanroom to ensure that every inch and small corner is addressed.
The frequency of a professional cleaning depends on your cleanroom's ISO Classification. Cleanrooms with an ISO Classification from 1 to 5 should consider semi-annual maintenance, while cleanrooms with an ISO rating of 6 to 9 benefit from an annual professional cleaning.
2. It Renews Cleanliness Standards for Employees
Employees who work in cleanrooms are diligent in maintaining the cleanliness and safety of their space. However, even the most diligent employee can become complacent with procedures after a while. Returning to a professionally cleaned space after an extended holiday will renew the vision an employee has about the ideal cleanliness of their cleanroom. This will reset the tone for their cleaning behaviors moving forward.
3. It Alleviates Employee Stress
Cleanroom employees have many expectations put upon them. Not only must they do their job well, but they're also responsible for maintaining an uncontaminated environment. By the time the holidays arrive, employees have been working hard all year, and the prospect of returning to work to do additional cleaning can make an employee feel reluctant.
Cleanrooms need to be maintained during a planned shutdown, or they risk an unplanned shutdown in the future. Utilizing an extended holiday shutdown to schedule professional maintenance ensures that when your employees return, they can focus on the work that benefits your business instead of focusing on additional cleaning.
Cleanroom Protocols for an Extended Holiday Cleaning
Just as you have protocols for maintaining cleanliness while your cleanroom is in use, you should also have them to prepare for a shutdown and cleaning.
1. Monitoring
Before your holiday cleanroom cleaning begins, you'll need a list of what must be monitored during the process. It'll be important to know that temperature, humidity, and non-viable particle levels are kept where you want them during the cleaning process. Prepare this list and be sure to assign monitoring responsibilities during the process.
2. Testing
Define exactly what regulations must be met and the testing that needs to be done to ensure that when your cleanroom is handed back to you, it's completely compliant.
3. Choosing
Choosing the right professional cleaning service is paramount. Be sure to ask about your potential cleaning service's certification, knowledge of cleanroom ISO Classifications, what products they use, and what training their employees receive. Choosing an experienced and knowledgeable cleaning service will save you time and money when you don't have to shut down in the future to clean up what a discount cleaning service left behind.
The Right Cleaning Service for Your Holiday Cleanroom Cleaning
Pegasus Building Services is the leading provider of Commercial & Critical Environment cleaning. Our critical environment cleaning specialists have industry-leading certifications and use the most innovative technologies to ensure that we exceed the industry's highest regulations of contaminant control. We follow International Organization for Standardization guidelines and offer services for critical environments like cleanrooms, from critical environment sterilization and micro-cleaning to contamination control and microbial environmental testing.
During your extended holiday, Pegasus is here to service your cold rooms, dry rooms, gray space, laboratories, and gown rooms. Visit our services page and contact us for your holiday cleanroom cleaning so that you and your employees can return to a pristine space, ready to work. Get your free cleanroom compliance quote now!
