Thank you to everyone who responded and I have pasted a list of the responses below. In the end we ended up going with Agilent after considering the pros and cons of both options: Getting priority service and replacement parts is more important to us than the costs.
Thank you again,
Paul
Responses:
1. We’ve used them in the past, around 2008-2012, back when we were still using the old Avance DRX consoles for our 500 and 600. Their rates were significantly lower than what Bruker would have charged us for a parts-only service contract. The only disadvantage to the Remi Group’s service agreement, was that it involved a few extra steps along the way. If something went wrong, then you would get the full-fledged quote from the manufacturer, and after the Remi Group’s people reviewed the quotes, they would send you a purchase order through the university. Usually, this process took several business days from the start of handing the Remi Group the quote, to actually getting the purchase order. Bruker never had any problems processing the PO’s and receiving payments
2. We looked into this option for aggregating all of our analytical equipment (NMR, EM, XPS, etc) but decided the risk of obtaining substandard service wasn’t worth the savings. In our case “substandard” meant delays in obtaining parts and onsite servicing.
3. We do not use Remi. I listened to their sales pitch and was unimpressed. We have parts contracts on our two Agilents and 600 Bruker. The University of
California does use Remi for a variety of other instruments – but not NMR. Here is my opinion – though your circumstances may be different. The price
savings in our case would have been roughly 33%. When you have a contract you get priority service for parts and visits since a PO is not needed. Agilent gives preference to their contract customers versus those who come in to purchase service with a PO. Remi is basically an insurance company but they will just go to Agilent with a PO – just as you could have. They do not have any preferential arrangement. My feeling is if I were to move to service with a PO I would let the University take the risk so I have the option to pay nothing if nothing goes wrong. We stay with our parts contracts to be sure we can get parts for our VnmrS and DD2
Vintage instruments. Agilent is now very stingy with their parts inventory.
4. Yeah…I have and it was a disaster. They say they cover all the vendors but when it came time to collect on a repair for an Olympus confocal they started questioning the bill. Then I found out Olympus had refused to do business with them in the past. I found out that other things were not as they should be. It’s an insurance company and they do not handle repairs themselves. Most big boys like Bruker , Agilent, Zeiss, and GE healthcare will only come out when they have nobody in their contract cue. People with service contracts come first so you might be down for a long time. A lot of companies have scaled back on their field service engineers so it makes it even harder now. To be fair… this was my experience five years ago.
5. We have tried them for other instruments (Mass Spec and Microscopy).
They are essentially just an insurance agency. You pay them money, and they turn around and contact the original manufacturer for service. I don’t know who the manufacturer is for your spectrometers, but most instrument manufacturers would rather have you work directly with them, and so when they get a service request through Remi, the manufacturer puts you a the bottom of the pile. Usually, you also can not directly contact the manufacture about problems or questions. Instead, you must call Remi, who calls the manufacturer, etc. My governmental location does not use them anymore, although I think other governmental site do.
6. From a pragmatic perspective, you’re probably still best served with Agilent, as much as it pains me to say so (based on experience with slow service in the past when you’re not on a service contract). They’re the sole supplier of the important replacement parts (console parts, probes, etc) if anything significant occurs, and they’re in a better position to really fulfill service level agreements in spirit, and not just letter.
If a SLA says ‘service within X days’, this does not guarantee uptime within X days. If the incumbent (Agilent) has the stronger supply chain, while the contender for the contract (Remi) does not, you may find it takes longer to get back up and running for older instruments. Agilent will serve and fulfill their own contracts with old stock parts first. It’s up to your department to make the risk assessment, and cost/benefit analysis based on what your departments needs are, number of instruments, required level of uptime, etc. If you have many instruments with moderate usage, the possibility of downtime forcing workload to spread to other instruments for the assurance of cost savings which can go elsewhere might be worth it. If you’re lacking the additional capacity, and downtime would be crippling, then even the assured cost savings may not be worth it.
7. You want the NMRs to keep running, right? Remi has no NMR service experience, nor NMR service equipment, nor NMR service engineers. Remi will beat Agilent’s PRICE, but Agilent has the parts, people and knowledge, so it is virtually impossible for Remi to beat Agilent on PERFORMANCE. You want the NMRs to keep running, right? IMO you will have to litigate for NMR performance if you hire Remi. No, I have no experience with them.
Paul Ralifo, Ph.D.
Chemical Instrumentation Center
Department of Chemistry
Boston University
590 Commonwealth Ave., Rm 299
Boston, MA 02215
T 617-353-4818
F 617-353-6466
ralifo_at_bu.edu<mailto:ralifo_at_bu.edu>
www.bu.edu/chemistry/resources/cic
On Jun 28, 2018, at 2:24 PM, Ralifo, Paul S. <ralifo_at_bu.edu<mailto:ralifo_at_bu.edu>> wrote:
Hi All
I am just enquiring to see if anyone uses The Remi Group (
http://www.theremigroup.com) for their maintenance/repair service agreements. We are renewing our service agreement with Agilent for our NMR and the university obtained a quotation from The Remi Group matching Agilent's agreement but at a much cheaper rate.
Equipment Maintenance Management Program (EMMP) |Remi
www.theremigroup.com
Remi's program empowers business owners and provides a cost effective, innovative solution to traditional service agreements.
Any information about your experiences if you use The Remi Group will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Paul
Paul Ralifo Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry
Boston University
590 Commonwealth Ave, Rm 299
Boston, MA 02215
T 617.353.4818 F 617.353.6466
ralifo_at_bu.edu
Received on Tue Jul 03 2018 - 10:40:26 MST