Many of our clients require a regular preventive maintenance (inspection). Belonging among them or not, have you ever thought about how you know the maintenance was performed properly?

I dare to say most users do not know how to know and – I do not want to underestimate them – even do not think about it. Simply they want the maintenance done and that’s it. The problem is that the maintenance protocol, at least if you follow what manufacturer requests, says nearly nothing useful to the end user. It speaks about laser, „heavy-duty“ tests, optics and whatever else. Only amperes, watts and degrees of Celsius. Is this of interest when sequencing? I doubt it. What I think you are interested in is the sequencing data, coming out from the machine.

Every sequencer has its specs (see the user guide) saying, for example, that when using this array, that polymer and this module the read length must be at least something. And this is what matters. If my sequencer is supposed to read 850 bp at QV20, does it read or doesn’t? Unfortunately, no service protocol tells you this, including ours.

This is why a few years back we have included an instrument performace verification into the preventive maintenance, free of charge. Once we finish the maintenance and issue the protocol, we grab the validation standards and run them in your instrument, using your array and POP. And we show you that after we have checked your machine, it does deliver what is supposed to deliver. This is quite a unique offer, you are really sure the sequencer is well. Our competitors - just to remind you - do not offer this.

Richard Nádvorník, richard.nadvornik@seqme.eu