I read the conversation regarding LC qualification, some people seem to be doing it themselves, others are contracting to the hardware manufacturers. Although its not easy, I think there's many advantages in handling your own qualifications, which leads me to this question. How many labs are performing their own LC servicing? And to what degree? Just lamp and seal changes or full blown maintenance? Is it in our interests to be reliant on the manufacturer? Let me know.

In our lab, we have ~30 LC's and 3 GC's. We perform all calibrations(PQ's)/PM's ourselves. While we have a full blown service contract, my group (lab inst. services) troubleshoots and repairs all equipment. I find that it is quicker to troublshoot and fix the problem AND THEN log a call for parts replacment. We usually have the equipment repaired in less than 1 day (not including re-qualification/calibration if required). Our vendor usually can't get to us for at least 1 day. We keep a good supply of spare parts/consumables so we can fix ~90% of the problems we get. The only time our vendor gets involved (save sending out parts to replace our stock) is for problems we cannot solve, or don't have the parts for (usually big ticket items).

Hope this helps
Steve

Although we have a small lab, our equipment is diverse - Varian GC, Finnigan SSQ MS, Beckman LC, 2 HP LC's and 2 Hitachi LC. I do all the work myself, inc. turbo pumps, soldering circuits etc. We dont have any service contracts. Again in agreement with "SRS", it would take too long and 90% of problems we can fix (the Hitachi machines never require any attention).