Dealing with Dionex?

[nolteboy]

Greetings all,

Our lab is nearing the end (oh fates, could it be true?) of the CDS-evaluation gauntlet. We have taken fairly serious looks at EZChrome Elite, Chemstation, ChromePerfect Spirit, Galaxie, and Chromeleon. We are an environmental production lab - we don't do much R&D or method development.

We really like the Chromeleon - at first blush it seems so much more intuitive and logical in the way the software architecture is set up.

In our neck of the woods, Dionex has a reputation for being hard to deal with after they've sold you something. I don't know if this is due to their being the Big Dog in the IC world, where they can just tell it like it is and that's that, or what.

We've got some "legacy" instrumentation (5890's), and a crew of analysts who cut their teeth on Chemstation back in the day. Regardless of what software we decide to go with, we are anticipating some bumps in the transition. Before we step off into vertiginous space, we'd feel much better knowing that, when the problems do arise, our vendor is going to be willing to take the time to get us rocking again.

I would welcome any and all comments on the various "post-purchase" experiences that you all have had, not only with Dionex, but also with Agilent, Justice, and Varian.

Peace,
nolteboy

[DR]

I'm not sure about Dionex in your area, but you appear to have left 2 of the major CDS players on the bench...
Empower (Waters) &
Total*Chrom (PE Nelson).

[wrxtotoro]

Empower is at least acceptable. But I wouldn't recommand ANYONE to do ANYTHING with Totalchrom. I used it for one year and totally hate it.

[Bruce Hamilton]

You really do want to get Dionex to point you towards a satisfied customer in your region. The customer should have made a similar transition recently, and be able to comment on their experience with the sales and after-sales support.

Support is critical for any data system, especially if you have legacy systems from various brands. You NEED the CDS supplier to accept responsibility for your installation, including compatibility with your instruments, before they arrive on site. Then you both can work towards problem resolution without blame.

You need to draft a very clear Purchase Specification for the CDS that details all the hardware and software features and support you expect the vendor to provide.

Sales critters exist to sell products, and not all of them now believe contented customers remain necessary prerequisite, as lab staff churn is now fairly fast. Reasonable products at reasonable prices will sell, and warranty support can erode the profit..

If you want a good relationship with any vendor, you both need to be talking about solutions, and the best way is good faith discussions with both sales critters and the support staff.

Good luck, and please keep having fun.

Bruce Hamilton

[DR]

Oh - nobody mentioned Agilent's Cerity (sp?) system... 'till now.

[Bruce Hamilton]

Oh - nobody mentioned Agilent's Cerity (sp?) system... 'till now.

Cerity was/is intended for pharma and similar regulatory environments, the original poster said they were an environmental production lab. Two versions ( Chemical QA/QC and Pharma QA/QC ), were around a couple of years ago.

Agilent still have the Chemical version of Cerity listed as an option for GCs, but apparently not for their HPLCs, and the Data Systems section of Agilent's WWW site only lists the Pharma version of Cerity. It's reasonable to assume that EZchrom may be the future.

I still use Cerity Pharm QA/QC, and the last version is more robust than the previous, but it still has significant instability issues when using the keyboaard. If you set up simple sequences and let Cerity run without any further input, ~98% of the time there is no problem. If you try to switch between data and acquistion, or ask it to reprocess data, then the system often becomes unstable, often requiring a full reboot of the computer and HPLC.

As Agilent have Chemstation/Chemstore, EZChrom, and Cerity, some rationalisation is likely.

Bruce Hamilton

[DR]

I thought Cerity was Agilent's effort to bag the best of Chemstation & other reporting tools into 1 more flexible, C/S installable package...

[Bruce Hamilton]

I thought Cerity was Agilent's effort to bag the best of Chemstation & other reporting tools into 1 more flexible, C/S installable package...

So did I.

Bruce Hamilton

[nolteboy]

I'm not sure about Dionex in your area, but you appear to have left 2 of the major CDS players on the bench...
Empower (Waters) &
Total*Chrom (PE Nelson).

Thanx for your replies. We did indeed contact both Waters and PE to let them know of our interest, but got lukewarm response from both. The only thing I could come up with was that we were too small a fish for them to bother (just 9 gc's)...

[H2Oh]

I've have mostly positive experiences with Dionex. Their phone support can be a little sketchy at times. I've called three times and heard three different answers more than once. We're a small lab but have been treated well especially when a significant problem pops up. If you have software problems and can't get the right answer from normal tech support, ask for Anna Kaplan. She's wonderful with Chromeleon. She may have been on the development team. Hardware wise, it's a bit of a crap shoot with your local service guy. I'm on the divide between two sections. One is great, one is...eh. I make a point of asking for them by name now.
I don't know the cost of Chromeleon compared to other vendors, but there are modules to upgrade. A PDA for example needs an upgrade over just UV. This might make it cheaper to begin with but costly in the end.

[nolteboy]

If you have software problems and can't get the right answer from normal tech support, ask for Anna Kaplan. She's wonderful with Chromeleon. She may have been on the development team.

Yes, our IC guy has talked to Anna Kaplan a number of times (regarding issues with the older Peaknet software) and she totally rocks! Thanx for sharing your experience.

[DR]

That's the trick - figure out who, at any of these companies, knows what they're doing and stick with them. Buy them lunch, get their cell numbers, find the ones who've moved out of tech support and into sales (they always answer their phones)...


:: still snickering at "sales critters" ::
That's actually nicer than what I tend to call them.

[dpr]

Having assessed the systems mention

Cerity
EzChrome, before Agilent bought the product
Waters
etc

We went with Galaxie, this system has proven stable and with recent developments with other Varian software interface packages we are looking at establishing bi direction transfer with our LIMS.

The Galaxie software is relatively young, currently v1.9c if memory serves, so the live expectancy of support and development of the system should be good.