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Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. I am sorry the
results took so long to report, but in addition to compiling them, I had
to perform my normal duties, which are to keep my instruments working,
and we all know how easy that is. Anyway, without further ado, I give
you:
BD SURVEY RESULTS
There were 39 people who I sent a survey to, and 23 sent responses.
Most of the others sent comments with their original request for a
survey. For the most part, the survey seemed to be supported by
everyone; no none came out and said it was a dumb idea, although a
couple of people didn't think it would help.
My intention was to see if there was a common thread that BD customers
faced. The thread that I found was that people are generally
unsatisfied with BD service. I could be accused of speaking from a bias,
because the service I have received has been just terrible. I have to
trust that you will believe me when I say I am just reporting what
people have told me.
I have sorted through a mountain of data, and truthfully, most of it
would be meaningless to you.. Here are some stats, though. Of the
returned surveys, 12 came from research institutes, 4 from straight
clinical, 5 from clinical/research and 2 from biotechnical companies. I
received comments from 2 of BD's competitors and many comments from BD
themselves. I have to say that they have supported my effort, and have
shown interest in the results.
The variety of labs, systems, and operations really makes correlating
the data I received useless. I received surveys from 250 bed community
hospitals to 1000+ teaching hospitals. Obviously their systems are going
to be different. Not only were the labs different, but the responses
came from all over the world: France, Britain, Germany, Switzerland,
Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada and of course, America.
What I am going to do, is to write what different people have said. I
will include both positive and negative comments, however there are more
negative comments than positive. Of the 23 returned 15 of them were
negative, 2 of them were positive and 6 were middle of the road. That
says something to me, even with this small representative slice of the
flow community. Here are the comments of your peers:
TD has 2 Scans, and a Star+. His instruments are heavily used and have
dedicated operators. Tech support "abysmal" for the Star+. His Field
Service Engineer (FSE) repeatedly told him that there was nothing wrong
with the instrument when there was. Quote, "BD's arrogance in dealing
with their customers is a major problem. They know all about these
problems and they don't do enough to rectify them."
AC has a Scan and a Star+. The Scan is used for 50-200 runs/day, while
the Star+ is used 2x/wk. There is one dedicated user for the Star+. She
reports contradicting recommendations from BD on proper maintenance. As
a result, she had experienced repeated failure of the fluidics. "BD
service not regarded as optimal or even good." She also says that the
service contracts are too expensive.
JM has an underutilized Vantage. It has been used for 5 or 6 sorts in
the last 3 years, however she fires it up weekly to run beads through
it. She purchased the Mac upgrade, and so far has gone through 3
interface boards, and has had to reinstall the software twice. Her
computer locks up during acquisition, the sample mixing assembly has had
to be replaced and the door to the video has had to be reseated.
Additionally, the ADCU motor has had to be replaced. She states she
receives poor phone support after hours, and as an example of poor QC,
her Vantage was shipped with two Y control knobs.
I agree with the poor QC. We just installed the ACDU hardware, and the
pins on the plastic tray shield were installed upside down. A minor
problem, but one that should have been caught before shipment.
ET has a Scan which is used 8-10 hours/wk. She has had no problem with
the Scan itself. She has recently bought the Mac upgrade, but was
reluctant to, because of the "unbelievable" markup on the prices. I
think she may have thought of purchasing the Mac system separately, for
she says that BD told her that she would have a tough time getting help
for any software problems if the systems weren't a BD system.
Nevertheless, she has had to replace the monitor twice, the CPU once and
the printer once. She also discovered that all the replaced components
were rebuilt ones, not new ones. She is considering going to Cytomation
for a sorter.
Cytomation popped up more than a few times as an alternative to BD...BD
are you hearing this?
PE has a FACSort which is used 1-3 hr/wk. In her experience, CellQuest
doesn't keep plot settings. "Annotated text, such as patient ID would
disappear until I clicked in the spot where I knew it was supposed to
be." Twice the software stopped showing events and she was told that the
cable had pulled out of the cytometer. She has had problems with her
printer twice (She has had the system since March.)
I have been told that too. The weight of the cable causes it to pull
out from the cytometer. ...Well, BD come up with a solution.
MH says he gets immediate feedback from any problems he comes across. He
is an established beta test site for BD
JN has 2 Scans, and a Vantage which is not in service. She has praises
for BD. When her system crashed due to a power supply failure, BD sent a
FSE from Sydney to New Zealand to fix the problem in less than 24 hours.
"All stops were pulled by BD to get us up and going again, which
included someone who had just returned to Australia coming straight back
and working on a Saturday." (Her instruments are clinical and they
have transplant patients which needed CD34 analysis) "We feel that we
made the right decision about buying a FACScan."
MK has a Calibur and a new Vantage. Since installation of the Vantage,
her FSE has been out three times to service the instrument, once to
replace the SEM, once to fix the video door (everytime it was opened, it
would reset the instrument settings- in the middle of a sort) and once
to fix the alpha lock. The FSE is also scheduled to return to adjust the
voltages going to the deflection plates. She reports that it takes her
FSE only about 30 minutes to perform the biannual PM. He is either super
fast, or all of the other FSE's are super slow.
MT has one Scan. She purchased the Power PC to upgrade her system from a
Quadra. Since the upgrade, FACSComp hasn't been running right. Her
instrument wouldn't switch from lin to log, causing all sorts of
troubles. (I have been told by BD that this problem was supposed to be
remedied with the FACSComp 4.0 version) Other problems she has faced
are that CellQuest wont save dot plots if quadrant markers are changed.
The very annoying Mac error11 occurred when trying to print less than
10 pages, resulting in a lost acquisition file. Her FSE has replaced the
E-prom, has reconfigured the instrument back to its original specs and
has replaced the Power PC's CPU, but all of this has failed to solve the
problems. Eventually, she ended up returning to the Quadra, and as of
the time she returned the survey, BD has been unable to repair her
system.
MB has a Scan and a FACSort, and had a wonderful FSE, but "When BD
develops new software, they need to get significant input from users in
the field. We do things out here that folks at BD must never do. I have
seen good things in software eliminated or buried. When we asked why the
change was made, the answer from BD was 'that feature was never used'.
In addition, I am tired of paying good money for a software package and
essentially end up being a beta test site."
GA has a Star+, a Scan and a Calibur which are used daily. The only
problems she has faced are normal maintenance problems.
MB has a Vantage and says that he cannot get his laser aligned, and that
BD has been unable to help him over the phone. He does not have a
service contract.
SM has an older model Vantage and Scan, both with their original lasers.
He has ideal working conditions for his instruments, including "more
than adequate" room AC and a sophisticated micro-processor controlled,
in-house chilled water system. His Scan is directly vented to an AC unit
so cool air is blown directly into it, while warm air is returned
through the AC unit to cool it. The room is kept at 68F, and 55%
humidity. Also, the room is basically dust free. (wow) "BD instruments
have performed flawlessly since installation. We have not experienced a
clog during sorting in over 15 months (WOW!) No problems with Mac or HP
computers. Extremely satisfied in the reliability of the BDIS system."
DD has a Scan, Calibur, Star+ and a Vantage. The cytometers are used
about 10 hours daily while the sorters are used once/day. He states that
his CellQuest upgrade took four months longer than promised. He has
experienced the well documented communications problems and unexplained
crashes in CloneCyt.
JC, RC and DY all claim to have no major problems with BD.
LG says he goes through about 2 air cooled lasers a year on his
instrument. His FSE keeps a laser in his office, to insure 24 hour
service. In spite of that, he gives BD a good report.
TCB has a FACSort which is used about 20 hours/week. He experiences
communications problems between cytometer and computer, but everything
his FSE has done has failed.
This one is my favorite:
CS has 2 Scans. She works in a hospital, so her Scans are clinical
instruments. She reports this: "We get very good response time on the
phone. If the problem can be handled over the phone, we generally get
good service. Only a few recent problems with new and inexperienced
reps...We finally found an outstanding BD service technician with years
of experience. He found a problems with our laser alignment that was
evident from PM printouts ON THE DAY INSTALLATION three years ago. The
installation was adequate (!) for immunophenotyping, but not accurate
for DNA. We are clinical flow techs, not instrument specs experts and we
rely on our service reps to advise us about instrument problems...We
figure thousands of dollars we paid for service should at least insure
sending someone who knows enough to fix a problem or at least cover it
up. Yet the problem with the laser was passed over during every PM
performed until our current rep located the error."
Here is my answers to the survey
I have two Scans, both of with are workhorses. You can beat the Scan
and they still work. They are better than Timex. Our Calibur, on the
other hand, is another story. We have had this machine since March. It
was manufactured in December 1996. Since installation, we have has to
replace a PMT socket, the 3-way sort valve, and the red diode
laser...TWICE IN 1 MONTH. This is the third laser for this instrument.
Our FSE installed this last laser just this week, but our instrument was
down a full week before. I called the problem in on Friday at 1100 am.
We couldn't fix it over the phone, so I expected a visit on Monday. We
didn't get that visit until late Tuesday. Because of the UPS strike, the
FSE had to drive himself to get the laser, and didn't return until
Thursday. (I am not laying any of this at his feet; we have an
excellent FSE.) We have also had problems with our Star+, which
resulted in numerous phone calls and two visits from FSE. We finally
discovered the true cause of the problem on the day of an important,
you-only-get-one-shot-at-this, sort. The fix was easy, luckily we had
the part, but no one caught it until it was too late. We were just told
our instrument had a clog. To give credit, one FSE did a good job, and
found another problem that added to the overall situation.
Well, this about raps it up. There are a couple of common threads I
see, one of them being BD service. People are tired of spending
thousands of dollars on service contracts to receive second rate
service. BD needs to listen more to their customers. Quality assurance
is another big concern.
One other note: these comments should be taken with a grain of salt. I
cannot guarentee that what people said happened really happened as they
said. What I mean is that I don't know the whole story in any of these
cases. I don't mean to imply that people gave false reports, because I
don't believe anyone did, but sometimes things aren't as bad as they
seem. Keep in mind, we are only getting one side of the story. I have
given BD a copy of this report, and they have explained some of these
incidences, and questioned others. They haven't however, tried to
explain all of them. I think they recognize that they truly have
dropped the ball in the majority of these cases.
So, what now? This survey will be for nothing, if nothing comes out of
it. I would really appreciate your comments, good or bad, especially if
you have experienced problems like the ones I have described. One idea
that I heard from someone in BD, and an idea I like more and more, is to
establish a consumers group that could be a liaison between BD and the
flow community. The group could tell BD what people are thinking, and
the community what BD is doing about it. Any comments on this? Again,
thanks for all who participated and supported this effort.
Best Regards,
Bill Nostrom
send comments to me at
slickwilli@hotmail.com
518-891-3080ex62
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