Service

Bruce Erickson, President of Certified Scientific Instruments, discusses the importance of service, and how the need for a company that could deliver restored, tested and certified machines caused CSI to come into existence.

Here is a scenario I saw played out over and over again when I was working for a broker. Essentially he had a huge data base and would spam labs to find out what they were selling or wanting to buy. A buyer would contract for an instrument and place a deposit, and then the broker would go looking for it. If it was still there (and not "subject to prior sale", he would have the instrument crated and shipped to the buyer. Sometimes it would be "deinstalled" by the OEM; this would not necessarily guarantee that it would be a good unit, only that it was packed in the crate correctly. At the other end, the buyer would receive the unit and someone would "install" it. Sometimes an OEM, sometimes a 3rd party, but often the unit would not be right and negotiations would start all over again... sometimes with threatening letters from lawyers.

I became increaingly disillusioned and finally left to start CSI. I have built a team of fully trained service engineers, who have the training and experience needed for us to set appropriate expectations, and then exceed them. Our engineers highly capable, and trained on specific instruments. Our sister company, AME Bioscience, offers the same, in Europe.

We do NOT have someone who runs a "self test" on a ABI 9700 and ships it as good; a "self test" basically lets you know the unit is beathing - you still need to have it calibrated and validated.

We DO have Max Kleytman, who worked at ABI for 10 years on PCR in the Pleasaton service depot, until they outsourced his job to Singapore and we got him! Max runs a battery of tests and calibrations including TNU, etc. He can fix the peltier if it isn't right.

When you buy or have us service an instrument, you get the documentation to back it up.

Here's what we are good at:

• Sequencers and synthesizers - we can offer real service contracts backed up by real full time employees.
• PCR - service and on-going calibration - this should be done yearly. We can provide service at your location, or in our labs

We are proud of our lab. It is clean, polished and set up for the above, the gas lines a dn power are in for Synthesizers, mulitple outlets with transformers to get clean correct power to use on Sequencers and a separate room dedicated to PCR.

Come see us!