What are the key considerations when buying a rheometer?

Abstract

The features of a rheometer and the benefits they confer, together with the instrument’s performance specifications, are obvious and important considerations when purchasing a new system. However, unless you are an experienced rheometer user, written specifications can be confusing and in the worst case may even be misleading.

1: Hardware and software features as well as instrument specifications

The features of a rheometer and the benefits they confer, together with the instrument’s performance specifications, are obvious and important considerations when purchasing a new system. However, unless you are an experienced rheometer user, written specifications can be confusing and in the worst case may even be misleading. It is not uncommon for an instrument to have the best technical specifications on paper but still be outperformed by another rheometer with seemingly inferior capabilities. Some manufacturers are more aggressive than others when listing specifications, and these are likely to have been provided under idealized conditions. Such conditions may bear little resemblance to those needed for characterizing your specific materials. In order to ensure you are comparing ‘apples with apples’ it is advisable to discuss instrument specifications with your vendor.

2: Who will provide the support you will need after the sale - for training, understanding your applications, setting up proper test methods and recommending test parameters for example? It is worth considering whether you are really happy for your primary support to come from a supplier’s (perhaps non-expert) sales organization. Will their priorities be in line with yours? Can you exploit the full potential of this rheometer based on initial training from a sales representative – someone who may be more used to giving demonstrations to achieve a sale than to capture key considerations when purchasing a rheometer research grade data or gain a fundamental, detailed understanding of the intricacies of the application? The outdated model of salesperson as ‘jack of all trades’ was common in the analytical instrument industry when it was growing rapidly and when support was much less of an issue. Today there are many thousands of instruments in industry and academia, and users need and demand more focused and specialist attention. A company that has expert personnel, and which delivers professional support through a variety of different channels, is best placed to help individual customers achieve the maximum return from their rheometer investment.Significantly, the salesperson is no longer seen by most instrument users as the primary support channel, with most now demanding: (a) a well-staffed help desk with highly trained advisors to act as a live initial point of contact
(b) exceptional support made available to customers 24/7 via the web
(c) specialists who spend 100% of their time working on a particular technology area

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