Pittcon 2002 showcases new company directions and trends.

At Pittcon 2002, major instrument companies, many of which have undergone a number of changes in recent years, showcased their new directions, reflecting the success of their transitions and preparations for the future. With regard to the short-term, many company executives were cautious about

Trends were hard to discern at this year's Pittcon. In line with corporate and market changes, leading instrument companies have fashioned new approaches to service, software and the connection between their analytical and life science instrument businesses. The trends below were not only evident among larger companies but smaller vendors as well.

Service Initiatives

Although service has long been regarded as a significant part of a company's success, many companies have recently launched new support and service programs, perhaps to reflect the changes in the marketplace and among competitors as well as changes within the companies themselves. For more mature product lines, service and support is one method to generate higher revenue growth and repeat business. But quality service and support often correlate with higher costs. Many of the companies introducing new expanded service and support programs have learned from the mistakes of the past and structured these programs with cost savings in mind. They have also encouraged the partnership of suppliers with customers through all steps in the purchasing process from the initial interest to ongoing service and support.

At Pittcon, Thermo Electron unveiled CarePlan, which merges the spectroscopy service segments of four of Thermo's spectroscopy businesses (Thermo ARL, Elemental, Nicolet and Spectronic). All spectroscopy parts, consumables and repair services for spectroscopy will be headquartered at Thermo Nicolet in Madison, Wisconsin. CarePlan offers a money-back guarantee, a choice of support packages, 24-7 remote support, and customized support. This move is in line with Thermo's goals of greater cooperation among its businesses, cost efficiency and what Chairman and CEO Richard Syron calls "expanded customer relationships". Similar plans are expected for other Thermo divisions in the future. In addition, Thermo announced at Pittcon that it is providing its larger customers with a key contact person to coordinate Thermo's offerings. With regard to its current partnerships with customers, as Mr. Syron put it, "We can't take that relationship for granted."

Horiba has also stepped up its service plan. In January, the Jobin Yvon division of Horiba introduced its ALLIANCE Service Program According to Horiba, "The program is an association where our customer goals become the goals of JY". The program extends to JY ICP, Glow Discharge and Spark spectrometer users worldwide. It features an online catalog for spare parts and accessories, a user discussion group, and real-time communication with service centers. In March Jobin Yvon introduced SynerJY, in which the Optical Spectroscopy Division's technical support, application, R&D and business resources will work with customers on spectroscopy solutions. According to Jobin Yvon, SynerJY "increases productivity, improves service and reduces operational costs."

Although PerkinElmer did not introduce a new service initiative, the company's Pittcon press conference spoke of the importance of service to its overall business. Service revenue accounts for 27% of the PerkinElmer Instruments total revenue. "Service is a changing offering within PerkinElmer," stated PerkinElmer Instruments President Stephen DeFalco at the company's Pittcon luncheon. The change is from simply repairing instruments to a longer-term relationship with customers. Service offerings consist of repair services, service contracts and value-added offerings. Value added offerings are the fastest growing, with a combined annual growth rate of 20%, and involve IQ/OQ, preventive maintenance and service of all the instuments in a lab, including other manufacturers' instruments. "We view [service] as the core of everything we do," he continued. The company's new customer care centers, numbering six in North America, three in Europe and three in Asia, are geared to a quicker response to customer requests and a higher-tech approach, including extensive use of the Internet.

Leveraging Technology Across Businesses

While many broad-based instrument companies have chosen to set up different divisions or units for their life science and traditional analytical instrument businesses, these companies do not view the businesses as completely separate. As a number of companies emphasized at Pittcon, technologies can be leveraged across a company to all businesses. As Agilent LSCA Vice President and General Manager Chris van Ingen put it, "a lot of the platforms we're developing for life sciences can be leveraged into chemical analysis" (see page 6). CEO and Chairman Al Lauer told IBO of Varian's commitment to its scientific instruments business as a whole and the reliance on its core technologies for the development of products for the life science market. As Varian's literature puts it in describing the company's approach to the life science solutions, "The answers may well be found in what are traditionally chemical analysis instruments, consumables or software." For companies such as Agilent, Varian, Thermo Electron, Waters and PerkinElmer, technologies ranging from HPLC to MS to GC are utilized in both the traditional chemical analysis and the life science markets. In this way, life science instrumentation draws upon traditional analytical technologies and approaches. At the same time, innovations for the life science market can be reconfigured for more traditional markets, such as the environmental and chemical segments.

Software for Comprehensive Solutions

Instrument software, chromatography data systems (CDS) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS) have long been a staple of Pittcon. But this year, more than any other, companies highlighted software that provides a broader, more comprehensive solution. Thermo LabSystems statement in a press release that it "offers a total solution for laboratory informatics" could sum up the goal of a number of instrument companies for their informatics businesses. At Pittcon, Thermo LabSystems introduced eRecordManager, that archives data in XML, a single public domain format for data. The software's cross platform and integrative abilities reflect the more extensive needs that informatics must meet. A comprehensive and detailed approach is also evident in PerkinElmer Instruments' Enhanced Security program that seeks to ensure the integrity of electronic data under GLP and GMP protocols and compliance with FDA and environmental regulations. The company released five more Enhanced Security software programs recently and reports that 55% of its R&D budget goes into software development. It also emphasized enterprise software with common components, again reflecting the broader approach of companies.

Such an approach is also encompassed in Micromass' MassLynx 4.0 software, which was introduced at this year's Pittcon. MassLynx 4.0 integrates data analysis, management and sharing tools for various applications and interacts with LIMS and Oracle databases, enabling a comprehensive approach for data from multiple instruments. The latest version of ProteinLynx Global Server, an application manager for MassLynx 4.0, integrates the tools for protein identification and characterization.