The BNC Engineering Staff does a periodic review of materials in the cleanroom and laboratories, discarding materials that are no longer in use.  This is necessary to keep the inventory levels of materials within fire code requirements, to provide adequate storage space for active materials, and to rid the facility of materials belonging to students who have graduated.

In completing this procedure this month we made a very bad mistake.  The e-mail that went out to the cleanroom users did not reach all of the users due to a computer glitch.  It did reach some users, and unfortunately when we checked to see if it went out, the users who were contacted were ones that HAD received the message – an unfortunate coincidence.  As a consequence, not everyone was informed of what was to occur and what steps they should take to indicate that their material should be saved.  This resulted in discarding photoresist that should not have been discarded.

As a staff, we are very sorry that this happened.  It was a mistake on our part to use only one method of communication.  All of us wish that we could somehow reverse this incident, but the photoresist is gone.  All we can do now is to apologize, and to put in place steps to ensure that this does not happen again.

In the future, communications of this sort will be four-fold.  First, we will send out a BNC-Cleanroom e-mail.  Second, we will post the information in the Monday Memo.  Third, we will put the information on the BNC News portion of the Web.  Finally, we will post paper signs on the cleanroom entrance and on the doors to the photoresist fume-hood cabinets.

We apologize for this incident, and for the problems it has caused.  This was an error on our part, and we have put in place procedures to prevent its recurrence.  That does not help those who lost their photoresist, that is something we cannot reverse.  For that, we are truly sorry.

Please accept our apology and be assured that we will do our best to prevent this type of incident from occurring in the future.

Sincerely,

John Weaver

Facility Manager