One-Stop Laboratory Procurement Showcased with Multiple Partners
In November 2023, MRK Instruments joined several laboratory instrument manufacturers for a product showcase and exchange event at Fudan University's School of Life Sciences. Unlike a single-brand roadshow, centrifuges, pipetting, incubation and analytical equipment shared one venue, letting researchers see the main equipment a laboratory needs in a single visit.
Why a joint event
The real pain in laboratory procurement is rarely finding a particular instrument — it is fragmentation. A new laboratory buys dozens of categories through a dozen suppliers, signing a dozen contracts and running a dozen acceptances, each requiring qualification review, quotation, delivery, installation and training. The administrative cost far exceeds the price differences between products.
The value of showing together is that it compresses that chain: users compare side by side on one site with one set of criteria, while buyers can consolidate several vendors into one quotation round, one acceptance and one training session.
Three topics dominated the discussion
The questions asked most often that day were not about price, but three specific ones.
First, how to choose.Many users judge by "the higher the speed the better", but the right approach is to work back from sample type and separation goal to the required RCF. Cells, bacteria and protein pellets need high g-force, so choose high-speed; routine clinical samples such as serum, plasma and urine, and large-volume supernatant work, are well served by low-speed models; temperature-sensitive samples require refrigeration.
Second, rotor and vessel compatibility.The same unit with a different rotor can serve an entirely different purpose. MRK offers 20 rotor types — angle, swing-out, microplate, slide, decapping and capillary — covering capillary tubes, round-bottom tubes, RIA tubes, vacuum blood collection tubes, 96-well plates and blood bags. Many visitors brought their own tubes to check dimensions, something only a face-to-face setting can resolve.
Third, maintenance and training.New graduate students often start operating immediately, with poor balancing and unsecured rotors the most common problems. We demonstrated the standard procedure and covered balancing, precooling and seal inspection.
From selling equipment to providing solutions
University laboratories have a dual demand — teaching and research. Teaching needs safety, ease of use and volume delivery; research needs headroom in speed, capacity and temperature control. Satisfying both usually takes a benchtop low-speed and a high-speed model rather than one fully loaded unit.
Combination proposals are the other point of showing together: products from different manufacturers placed in one solution, configured by people who understand the workflow rather than assembled by the user. MRK's typical university setup pairs a benchtop low-speed with a benchtop high-speed, balancing operator safety for students against the speed and capacity demands of research.