Clean rooms hum along nicely at Maxell
Hi-tech multimedia company depends on Vapacs for clean room environments.
CD-R, MDs and DVDs are just some of the latest multi-media products to hit
the high street from Maxell, one of the world leaders in technology. Yet, without
a controlled manufacturing environment that includes careful monitoring of
humidity and temperature levels, such products wouldn’t see the light
of day.
Humidification plays a key role in the manufacturing process for Maxell, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of tapes, discs and computer media. The company relies on carefully controlled conditions in the clean rooms at its Telford plant all year round and depends on Vapac units to maintain the humidity levels.
Maxell is a household name famed for its supply of state-of-the-art energy, memory, media and sound vision products. At Telford, Maxell employs over 500 people and produces video and audio products together with memory media products. In addition, rechargeable battery devices are manufactured to customer’s specifications.
The site is a modern 20,000-sq.-metres single storey development. It has four plant rooms housing a mix of multi-vendor AHUs, chillers, water softener units and Vapac units, providing fresh air and cooling throughout.
The plant rooms are operational all year round. Maxell operates a continual threeshift system to maintain high production levels, fuelled by customer demands. Telford has an incredible output. Each month the factory manufactures over twomillion video cassettes, 2.5-million audio cassettes, half-a-million Mini-Discs and an average of six-million floppy disks.
Much of the manufacturing is carried out in the company’s clean rooms. The majority of clean rooms have 100,000 classification. In these rooms the temperature is maintained at 21° centigrade, plus or minus 2° centigrade with 50% RH, plus or minus 10%.
The manufacture of Mini-Discs requires more sterile conditions, and has a higher classification, Class10,000.
Great care has to be taken to ensure that temperature and humidity levels are tightly controlled. The temperature is maintained at 22° centigrade, plus or minus 2° centigrade with 45% RH plus or minus 10%.
Each Mini-Disc starts out as a transparent polycarbonate disc and undergoes various processes before ending up as a usable recording media. The processes include stamping and sputtering whereby each disc is stamped with grooves and covered with silicon. It is then given its recording ability with a magneto-chemical layer.
Finally, each one is covered with an aluminium titanium layer and a coating of lacquer to prevent oxidation. Each disc provides 74 or 80 minutes of recording time. They can be recorded on up to onemillion times without losing quality and will eventually replace audio cassettes.
Humidity is key. Throughout the process, temperature and humidity levels are continuously and rigorously checked.
The Vapac units at Telford are a mix from the Vapac range. The units serve all the clean rooms and are networked into a BMS. A couple of the units are more than 15 years old and testimony to the fact that they are built to last. However as Telford is in an area notorious for its hard water the Vapacs and associated pipe works have to be regularly checked and de-scaled. “The plant uses a mix of town and softened water” says Duncan Roberts, Site Services Engineer.
Even so, a combination of high usage and hard water takes its toll on the Vapacs. The cylinders need to be replaced every three months. Preventative maintenance is therefore a necessity and cylinders need to be changed before a major fault develops. ”If an AHU breaks down or a humidifier gets clogged up, it results in downtime for production, which can be costly” says Duncan.
Despite the associated hard water problems which are par for the course in the region, the Vapacs rarely develop faults. “They are good work horses” says Duncan Roberts. “We have since added to our system and purchased two more Vapacs based on the reliability of our existing units.”
Reliability is important to Maxell. As a company at the forefront of technology providing specific solutions to precise customer requirements, it depends on a reliable infrastructure from employees to machinery. “We expect to be able to rely on our support network to provide an environment in which we can focus on our core business and that includes humidification” comments Duncan Roberts.