Running analytical instruments and keeping them running can cost up to 10-20% of the initial purchase price of an instrument every year. There are several ways to reduce these costs while not impacting the productivity of the instrument.
Training
Operators can do many of the tasks that the manufacturer's or third party service charge up and beyond $300 / hour. These tasks include maintence, cleaning source or trap components, changing consumable
Method Optimization
Many customers setup an application, certify it according to their QC requirements and then move onto other projects. In real world samples, matrix, especially biological samples, can be very dirty and eventually build up residue in the inlet and other areas of the GC/MS. Careful attention should be paid the application in the initial year it is running. At some point the contamination becomes so bad that either the calibration or tune fails the operator can't fix, and a service call is placed.
Preventing or minimizing this situation can be minimized by the chemist who initially sets it up.
- Clean up of the sample before it gets into the instrument. For many types of analysis (purge and trap, air monitoring) this is not possible but for others it can make a big difference.
- Implementing back flushing on the MS. Not all applications work well with back flush, it adds more hardware and connections to system. However, when properly implemented, it can keep sample matrix from ending up in your expensive MS.