Stricter ESD control at components distribution centre.

Anglia Components has announced significant enhancements to the stringent ESD protection measures at its Distribution Centre including integrating anti-static wrist band monitoring with access control.

Staff are only able to enter the Distribution Centre if their anti-static wrist band is compliant. When they swipe their cards for access they must also attach their wrist band to a wall-mounted unit for testing. The unit records the resistance measurement and indicates whether the band has passed or failed. Employees failing the test are physically prevented from entering the Distribution Centre until their wrist band has been retested and passed. This procedure takes only a couple of seconds and is carried out each and every time an operator re-enters the Distribution Centre, for example following lunch and tea breaks. A full and auditable record of all measurements is maintained.

This new measure allows Anglia to clearly demonstrate that it is fully compliant with IEC61340-5, in terms of testing wrists straps at least daily and maintaining records to provide evidence of conformity.

Steve Rawlins, CEO of Anglia, commented, “Anglia has always taken ESD protection extremely seriously and we are proud that with the installation of this new system we have achieved a level of protection and control that is ahead of the industry. The new unit rigorously enforces our stringent standards, and provides detailed compliance certification records to provide evidence of conformity.”
“As before, Anglia has taken working practices that are a necessity for Hi-Rel medical and defence customers and extended them to our full customer base, so that everyone sees the benefit.”

At the same time, Anglia has standardised the layout of ESD grounding points across all the workstations, to ensure that visibility of the ESD cables and connections can be quickly and easily checked by the operator. The cables are colour coded to ensure the correct resistance to the bench and the operator wrist band.