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The Rolls-Royce Gallery Clean Room Will Detect Particles 100,000 Times Smaller Than The Diameter Of A Human Hair
In a bid to provide a sterile environment within which delicate and highly bespoke items can be assembled, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has commissioned a highly technical Clean Room at its manufacturing facility at Goodwood, West Sussex, England.
The “Clean Room” is similar to what you’ll find in microchip manufacturing plants and in pharmaceutical and medical equipment production facilities. It contains four medical grade, positively pressurised spaces and a complex filtration system that continually remove unwanted particles from the re-circulating air.
The recently commissioned Clean Room will be the new birth place of the “Gallery“, an uninterrupted piece of glass and works of art which spans the fascia of each eighth generation of Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Furthermore, a highly technical sensor continually measures the particulate concentration of each space. Any particulates measuring above 0.001 of a micron are detected. This is a staggering statistic considering a human hair is between 50-100 microns in diameter. If contamination is detected, the Gallery Clean Room associates are able to identify exactly when and where the contamination took place, in order to improve future assembly.
Rolls-Royce Gallery Clean Room
There are only five associates at the Home of Rolls-Royce trained to operate in the Gallery Clean Room, with only two permitted to enter at any one time. These associates must also comply with strict guidelines to prevent possible contamination. No cosmetics, hair products or deodorant may be used.
The Medical Grade Spaces In The Rolls-Royce Gallery Clean Room
In the first enclosure, associates prepare to enter the body of the Gallery Clean Room. They dress top-down, to reduce the risk of hair and other imperfections soiling clothing. Medical-grade, lint free surgical clothing must be worn at all times, including a hairnet, a sterile mask, surgical overalls and overshoes. Associates must have previously cleaned their hands using deionised water, preventing possible contamination from soap and regular water. Bespoke non-powdered latex gloves have been developed specifically for Rolls-Royce to ensure moisture generated due to perspiration in this highly pressured environment is contained 100% within the glove.
Alongside the Gallery Clean Room is the Logistics Enclosure. There, the artwork enters the chamber wrapped in a protective film, inside two hermetically sealed containers. The outer package is discarded, the inner package is cleaned in preparation for entering the next laboratory.
Next, is the Preparation Room. Entry is via an airlock, with each room becoming further pressurised to create a compression chamber. The increasing atmospheric pressure also ensures that air only flows out of the facility. The artwork is delicately removed from its packaging and cleaned on a specially created machine, or ‘extract bench’. Here, dust particles are extracted whilst the associate uses ultra-violet light and a powerful magnifying glass to identify any imperfections. No foreign objects are allowed to enter this space, even paper is forbidden.
The final enclosure is the Operation Centre, in which the micro-assembly takes place. This space is atmospherically pure, with only one Phantom Gallery, and one Rolls-Royce Associate, permitted entry at a time. This room is deep cleaned each week in a process that takes up to eight hours. Any componentry entering the space must also have been through an intensive cleaning process. All metal elements, must be sanitised in an ultrasonic cleaner at 70 degrees for a period of 52 minutes. Further ultra-violet light examinations take place before the final assembly and the artwork is finally sealed within Phantom’s Gallery.
To make the Gallery Clean Room a reality, experts from the Home of Rolls-Royce visited pharmaceutical and microprocessor Clean Rooms to fully understand these complex manufacturing laboratories and learn of the procedures and requirements necessary to create a medical grade, particle free, sterile enclosure. Even a minute speck of dust would detract from the aesthetic perfection of the Gallery. The assembly therefore requires meticulous attention to detail.
VIDEO OF THE ROLL-ROYCE GALLERY CLEAN ROOM
