Customer Service Laboratory

DuPont research into high current density and the associated effect on membrane and electrolyser performance has been underway for a decade. It has been the area of greatest concentration for the company during the last 5 years. Studies at the DuPont Experimental Station and Fayetteville Nafion Customer Service Laboratories resulted in polymer innovation and new membrane designs. This work has also identified interactions between membranes and electrolysers... 

DuPont s perspective on membrane development will be outlined. The expansion of the facilities at the Nafion Customer Service Laboratory will also be described. This expansion has been undertaken in support of DuPont s commitment to increase the understanding of chlor-alkali technology and ensure continuous improvement of DuPont s membranes. 

In its support of the commitment to increase the understanding of chlor-alkali technology and to continuously improve its membranes, DuPont has expanded its CSL (Customer Service Laboratory) facilities at Fayetteville, North Carolina in the United States. 

Prior to 1999, DuPont maintained laboratories at both ESL (Experimental Station Laboratories) in Wilmington, Delaware and the CSL (Customer Service Laboratory) in Fayetteville. In preparing for the new millennium, DuPont s business plan has provided for moving the main research function to Fayetteville and consolidating the laboratories there. These facilities are also now showing their age after a combined 35 years of round-the-clock operation. 

Customer Service and Service Contracts It is important to choose a vendor that has a good customer service track record. Contact other laboratory directors and supervisors to ascertain their experience with the vendors that service their laboratories. Also, the cost of a service contract will need to be factored into the laboratory operating budget after the acquisition of an automated staining platform. 

The company is divided in several organizational units Sales, Customer Service Department, Purchasing, Production, Storage and Quality laboratory. Despite the fact that these units are all involved in the operational process, they do not reflect the actual process flow, instead they represent the way in which the company has organised its human resources into groups. 

This is the waste coming from the production of more units than demanded. The optimum number of products to be produced must balance the demand, including that in high season periods, the cost of holding the stocks in the warehouse and the cost of setting up the production to produce one lot of the product. In terms of an analytical laboratory, overproduction could be interpreted as any activity that is not necessary for customer service or for adding value to the experience and knowledge of the laboratory. There is no need to analyse too many samples unless we have reasons to do so. Furthermore, there is no need to perform more analyses than necessary. Too many analytical results are a waste. For example, the optimum number of replicates must balance the need for statistical evaluation. 

Bethesda Research Laboratories Inc., P.O. Box 577, Gaithersburg, MD 20760 in collaboration with Dr. J. Messing is now a central clearing house for all Messing s strains which are obtainable, free of charge, on request to BRL Customer Service Department. BRL also supply M13 cloning/sequencing kits. 

The first industrial application of an induption-coupled plasma occurred within a custom analytical laboratory. At the present time, in Canada alone, there are five commercial laboratories with ICAP systems. Within our own organization, the two systems were acquired in 1974 and 1975. At that time there was a confidence that the ICAP would become a key instrument for the service facility. Since that time, extensive experience which reinforces this view has been obtained in the routine application of the ICAP to diverse analytical problems and samples. 

Comments Very big company. Very, very extensive list of laboratory chemicals, catalysts etc. Don t order from them directly. They prefer you get their products from indies. Well, it was kind of funny because I was able to secure an exclusive list of the sales-to-individuals policies of their distributors from a very friendly operator in Spectrum s customer service department. Guess he kinda liked me. So now you can go to the A list of indy suppliers for the real goods. 

Products/technologies Unique gene response profiles provide mechanistic information that can be used to optimize drug leads, as well as automated assays for screening drug leads for safety. Tools are offered as kits for customers to perform in their own laboratories or as a service through Xenometrix s Customer Research Laboratory. 

The vast majority of ecstasy consumed domestically is produced in Europe. It costs as little as 25 to 50 cents to manufacture an ecstasy tablet in Europe, but the street value of that same ecstasy tablet can be as high as 40, with a tablet typically selling for between 20 and 30. A limited number of ecstasy laboratories operate in the United States. Law enforcement seized 17 clandestine ecstasy laboratories in the United States in 2001 compared to 7 seized in 2000. United States Customs Service statistics show a dramatic increase in seiznres of MDMA tablets. In fiscal year 1997, approximately 400,000 MDMA tablets were seized, compared to approximately 7.2 milhon tablets seized in fiscal year 2001. On Inly 22,2000, approximately 2.1 milhon tablets worth an estimated 40 million were seized in Los Angeles. To date this is the largest seiznre of MDMA tablets in the United States. ... 

Roche has a research and development (R D) center in China with 40 employees. Novartis built an R D center in China in 2006. Eli Lilly and Company has an R D contract for chemistry services with a Chinese custom research laboratory that is under exclusive service to Lilly. Other pharmaceutical companies also have extensive FTE arrangements with custom research laboratories in China (one example is Merck s collaboration with WuXi PharmaTech). 

Dr. Joe Comp retied from SUSC in 1989, Dr. Richman left SUSC in 1990 and Ty Redd took over management of the Water Lab. He quickly recruited several top freshman and sophomore chemistry students who demonstrated a diverse and desired set of personalities, such as attention to detail, reliability, initiative, and collegiality. These students were trained in the QA/QC practices of an environmental water laboratoiy. Dr. Redd formalized a model of peer mentorship by training a sophomore student to serve as the laboratory QA officer. This QA officer trained each new student worker, who was subsequently certified by the State Health Department on specific analyses. During this time period, good laboratory practices were fostered and maintained. The laboratory developed into a quality operation that provided consistent results, customer service, and retained Utah state certification. This certification required the lab to analyze a sample, obtained from the EPA, and get values within a certain threashold. 

Laboratory Tests for Mineral Deficiencies. Tests for iron-deficiency anemia are widely used all over the world but most of the tests for other mineral deficiencies are limited mainly to research studies, because there is a lack of information regarding normal values for such groups as infants, children, adults, and pregnant or nursing mothers. Nevertheless, a growing number of commercial laboratories offer analyses of hair and/or urine directly to customers. These laboratories may also sell mineral and vitamin supplements to the people who use their services. 

Product innovation absorbs considerable resources in the fine chemicals industry, in part because of the shorter life cycles of fine chemicals as compared to commodities. Consequently, research and development (R D) plays an important role. The main task of R D in fine chemicals is scaling-up lab processes, as described, eg, in the ORAC data bank or as provided by the customers, so that the processes can be transferred to pilot plants (see Pilot PLANTS AND microplants) and subsequently to industrial-scale production. Thus the R D department of a fine chemicals manufacturer typically is divided into a laboratory or process research section and a development section, the latter absorbing the Hon s share of the R D budget, which typically accounts for 5 to 10% of sales. Support functions include the analytical services, engineering, maintenance, and Hbrary. 

Special Tests. Even though the American Society for Testing and Materials offers a wide range of test methods, there are other special tests that are imposed upon the manufacturer by consumers, the military, the U.S. Government, and ia some cases local or municipal governments. These tests are generally very specific and are oriented toward particular service conditions. In many iastances, the producers develop special tests within thek laboratories to solve customer problems or predict product or production performance. Many of these tests subsequentiy are adopted by ASTM. 

You may provide services to your customer such as an installation service, a technical support service, a laboratory service, diagnostic service, or customer training, etc. These are services and not servicing and should be addressed as activities governed by elements 4.1 through 4.18 and 4.20. 

Many researchers choose to buy expensive GPC/SEC columns from one of the major producers because that producer s columns had been used in the past or because of a successful marketing campaign by one particular producer. It should be noted that repacked columns can be obtained for a fraction of the cost of new columns. American Polymer Standards repacked columns are guaranteed to perform just as well as new columns from any company. When a column is repacked the only parts reused are the stainless-steel tube and end caps. This hardware is then repacked using new frits and new ST-DVB gel. Each column is individually tested in a quality control laboratory and shipped in the customer s choice of solvent. American Polymer Standards offers a column repacking service because it is a practical, inexpensive way for customers to acquire state of the art GPC/SEC columns. 

---