Barbara Kanegsberg

“It’s the best. All the big companies in aerospace, (or medical devices or telecommunications or….) use this fantastic cleaning agent.” You hear claims in advertising, from sales reps who come to your shop; from people at trade shows. Is it the right cleaning chemistry for manufacturing your product? Learn more […]

This is a call to action for all involved with US manufacturing! Cal/OSHA is proposing to set an airborne permissible worker exposure level (PEL) of 0.3 ppm time weighted average (TWA) for hydrogen chloride (HCl). If passed, this would be a lower level than 0.4 ppm recently set in California […]

A few weeks ago, Larry Adams asked if I’d like to comment about critical cleaning for  “MicroManufacturing Magazine “ (see The Power of Knowledge Acted On section below). I replied: of course I would! His questions got me thinking; and I ended up discussing how critical cleaning impacts manufacturing, how […]

29 people coming to dinner? No problem! I thought it was all under control. The apple and pumpkin pies were cooling nicely. The turkeys were out of the oven. The ovens were pretty much empty (or at least, I didn’t see billows of smoke). I placidly sipped red wine as […]

Yellow, Orange, Gold – Rust! Beautiful as autumn colors, desirable as a patina on some sculptures, terrible on manufactured parts. Corrosion compromises product quality, both by direct impact on surface quality and by contributing to contamination. In critical cleaning, cleaning agents and cleaning equipment can be sources of corrosion. Corrosion […]

Standards and safety/environmental regulations shape the way product is manufactured. Here’s a “heads-up” about new and ongoing activities: Cleaning of Surfaces (ISO Working Group) Medical Device Cleaning and Validation (ASTM) ASTM Bearing Cleaning (ASTM) VOC exemption (U.S. EPA) Degreaser Rule (Delaware) Why we get involved Understanding standards, guidance documents, and […]

Oil and water do not mix (at least not readily); so how can manufacturers successfully remove oil from product using water? The key is in the formulation, in the secret blend of “herbs and spices;” or, for fully-formulated aqueous cleaning agents, in the blend of chemical additives, most of which […]