LCMS and GCMS service contract providers

[Tony]

Hello,
We are in the process of renewing service contracts for an LTQ-Orbitrap and Leco Pegasus GCTOF. Current contracts are with Thermo and Leco, respectively - however, I was wondering if anyone had knowledge of alternative service contract providers for these instruments in the UK?

I'm asking because we may need to go through a protracted tendering process due tot he costs involved, but I was wondering if there really are any viable alternatives to the instrument vendors themselves for these rather specialised pieces of kit.

thanks
Tony

[JGK]

I'm not sure whether this still happens at all but when I was last in the UK (2001) the comany I was with used a third party Insurer for servicing.

My company paid them an annual fee covering all the instrumentation and if an item needed repair they were contacted and they arranged for the repair to be conducted by the most appropriate source (this was ineviatbly staff service from the vendorsthermo, agilent waters etc). Down-times were generally unaffected with this arrangement.

Dealing with one company was easier than with a multitude of vendors for servicing.

[lmh]

This is a difficult one to get into, but I do have a strong, totally personal opinion:

Some 3rd party companies are probably not reliable. We've had a repair to a Dionex instrument not carried out by Dionex where significant questions were raised: paying for parts that didn't turn out to be the correct ones to change, and a pump that shortly afterwards was found in a dangerous condition without reasonable explanation. We can't prove anything, but it was a nasty and costly situation.

I can't think of a way to guard against the 3rd party company that takes the money so long as the instrument is working fine, but then when they encounter a problem they really cannot fix, just offers the money back. I don't know if this could happen, but it bothers me. What would we do? The bottom-line with a manufacturer's contract is that you get an engineer who has access to the people who designed the instrument, and if he/she really cannot fix it, they will, ultimately, replace the instrument with new, if no other solution can be found.

With 3rd parties and tendering, you need to check you are comparing like with like.

[CE Instruments]

As a retailer I must also say that you should stay with the supplier as they have access to the full factory support and the right parts and knowledge. That said I take my cars to specialists and Agilent now appoint channel partners who are trained and have factory access.
For relatively new equipment, just like a car I would always use a factory approved vendor. For older and especially old kit a specialist. Here in the UK there are loads of ex VG/Masslab/Fisons/Finnegan etc. engineers who are factory trained and now work for the third parties, a worth while saving. As a guide these companies that try and support kit by paying the manufacturer when it goes wrong will never be able to provide as good support. If you take out a contract with your supplier you get priority, a third party company will always come second and a competitor may wait a long time for the part to be sent from the factory

When approached by a third party check their qualifications, their stock , their experience and their relationship with the factory. There are cowboys out there

[sassman]

We use a third party (Research Scientific Services) for service of our API3000. I believe they only work on Waters and Applied Biosystems products, though. So they probably can't help with your equipment. I have had very positive experience with their work. Most of their service engineers have worked with either Waters or ABI at some point in their careers. Overall, I would say that they are actually more knowledgeable about the products than Waters and ABI's own engineers. I have also found them to be much more helpful over the phone compared to ABI. Usually when I call ABI for tech support they end up telling me that I need a service call whereas our 3rd party company usually can help me to fix the problem myself.

[LWC]

I have found that if you have an instrument that has multiple manufacturers (ex autosampler, purge trap) I find it easier to work with a 3rd party that has experience working with all of the equiptment connected to your instrument. When working directly with the manufacturer I find that they tend to point fingers at the other manufactrors when they are not sure what is wrong with their system. Like CE Instruments said check out the 3rd parties experience and how fast they can get a tech out to you as well as parts.