Engineers - invasive maintenance clean down with compressed air
Can others advise please their policy on the use of compressed air by engineers to assist in cleaning up after invasive maintenance (eg drilling, tap and die and other activities that generate or may generate fragments of foreign matter). This is for machinery that produces final product, and it does have a metal detector.My preference is vacuum and lint free cloth moistened with alcohol to wipe, followed by visual inspection and signoff. My concern is that the use of compressed air to blow the surface down is a dispersive method, and may even blow the material onto another line. Engineers have the view that getting swarf etc out of nooks and crannies is impossible without it.
Hi Packaging QA,
I would be of a similar view to yourself. They are not performing 'a documented clearance procedure which records that contamination hazards have been removed and equipment cleared to resume production.' They are dispersing the hazard.
In my opinion such drilling and generation of swarf should be carried out away from the production area, in a designated area in the Maintenance Workshop with appropriate precautions such as swarf mats.
Kind regards,
Tony
Dear Packaging QA,
Nothing to add to the previous comment, about blowing with compressed air.
Better is the vacuum cleaner. You have to ask yourself the question, whether the final cleaning has to be done by the engineering guys? From a practical point of view: knowing what they have repaired, they know where the debris are. However, the release of the machine, can't be done by the same responsible.
Please note, that swarfs can easily be below the detection limit of your metal detector.
Kind regards,
Gerard Heerkens
There is no such word as "can't". As Tony said do such activities away from the line and remove the hazard completely. If some work must be done in production then they should attempt to protect product and the work area as much as possible and clear with less invasive means such as vacuum. A final clean with the airline would be a last resort once everything else is exhausted.
Thanks all.In this instance the part being drilled had to be done in situ unfortunately as it was an integral part of the welded machine chassis, otherwise removal to workshop (thereby virtually eliminating potential contamination) would be preferential. Consensus seems to be no to compressed air as a clean up method. QA - 1 , Engineers - 0 !