Tri-State Business Systems | Custom labels that withstand IPA cleaning and more

Customer overview

Tri-State Business Systems aspires to be a top healthcare company world wide, and is dedicated to leading innovations and solutions for tomorrow. CleanMark has been a part of supporting this customer to achieve that vision since 2007 with our cleanroom labels. Since 2007, CleanMark has been successfully solving a variety of extreme environment and cleanroom label identification challenges, resulting in a long, successful partnership. 

The challenge | Existing labels were illegible after IPA cleaning

CleanMark partnered with Tri-State Business Systems to test the chemical resistance and durability of our labels. The story began when CleanMark identified that this customer was modifying one of their cleanroom processes to accommodate a label that was not durable enough to withstand IPA cleaning.

In order to ensure that lab samples would not be contaminated with any foreign particles, technicians thoroughly cleaned lab sample vessels with a heavy dose of IPA. The ideal process was to label the sample prior to the IPA cleaning. Unfortunately, Tri-State Business Systems’ old cleanroom label could only withstand a brief IPA cleaning before it began to lose legibility. The inability of their current cleanroom label to withstand this extreme environment dictated a process change. 

The process was modified such that the collection vessel would first undergo a heavy dose of IPA prior to being labeled. Once the label was applied, a secondary step was added to wipe down the vessel again, with less aggressive IPA cleaning. Although this new process solved Tri-State Business Systems’ legibility issues, it added an additional step in their process and also increased the possibility of contamination. Tri-State Business Systems needed an ISO 5 cleanroom label that could be applied to the vessel right away, then wiped immediately with a high dosage of IPA to ensure total decontamination and save time and materials.

The solution | Durable labels to withstand IPA cleaning

There was no commercially available chemically resistant, direct thermal printable cleanroom label material that met the ISO 5 cleanroom label requirements at the time. Therefore working closely with engineering, CleanMark researched multiple materials and constructions that would meet these requirements. Multiple candidate constructions were developed and tested using the process below until the final solution was achieved. 

• Print the label in order to uniquely identify the collection vessel
• Apply the label to the collection vessel
• Thoroughly soak the vessel with aggressive amounts of IPA

The successful solution also included a print treatment which improved the overall performance of the label. Finally, a durable cleanroom label was qualified for use within the process.

“I was present at the facility with their engineering team and printer supplier, Tri-State Business Systems, doing a demonstration of CleanMark’s solution. Clothes soaked in IPA were placed over both CleanMark’s new label and the old label. We met for about an hour on another project and came back to the demonstration at the end of that meeting. It was amazing to see how the new label retained its integrity and complete legibility and you could not discern anything on their old label.”

— Bev Nelson, Sr. sales representative, CleanMark Labels

The results | A cleanroom label that can withstand IPA cleaning and more

The label solution that CleanMark helped create has led to many more applications within Tri-State Business Systems. In addition to the original project, they now use CleanMark cleanroom labels to meet a myriad of requirements. We helped them customize adhesive characteristics for various surfaces and extreme environments. 

In a more recent project, CleanMark used its own cleanroom to manufacture labels in a microbe free cleanroom environment. We were able to meet this requirement while also utilizing CleanMark gamma sterilized cleanroom labels, showing how CleanMark can rise to the occasion to meet even the most stringent critical environments.