Why Not Use Household Cleaning Products for Industrial Processes?
Aqueous cleaning processes are most efficient when the appropriate chemistry for the soil and substrate (the part being cleaning) is selected. By using a consumer or household product in an industrial or critical cleaning process, you sacrifice productivity and increase costs. In addition, there have been too many instances of problems with build processes that could be traced directly to the use of consumer or household products. Sometimes, the problem chemistry was used during final assembly; in other cases, the source of inadequate cleaning or surface damage could be traced back to use of consumer chemistries at a sub-vendor/supplier. While we are covering primarily aqueous (water-based) products, some of the same concerns hold true for other cleaning agents that are based on organic chemicals such as mineral spirits or biobased chemicals. In a nutshell, a successful cleaning process removes soil (matter out of place) without leaving harmful residue and without damaging the product.
