What to ask a laboratory equipment supplier in Bangladesh before you sign
By Vvon Engineering Team | Published | Updated
The installation, warranty, training, consumable, calibration and service questions to settle in writing before buying laboratory equipment in Bangladesh.
A useful equipment comparison covers technical performance, the delivered configuration and continuing support. Review service and commercial terms with the same care as detection limits or measurement ranges, especially when parts and specialist work may need manufacturer involvement.
Installation, commissioning and who does what
When do we receive the site preparation document? Ask for it before the order rather than after. It states the power, cooling, exhaust, floor loading, clearances and environmental limits, and each of those is a separate contractor with its own lead time.
Who is responsible for the civil, electrical and plumbing work? Write the answer into the purchase order, because 'installation included' means different things to different suppliers and the difference is discovered on delivery day.
Is the commissioning engineer based in Bangladesh or arriving from abroad, and who bears the cost if the visit has to be repeated because the site was not ready?
Exactly which tests are performed at commissioning, and do we receive a signed report carrying the measured data rather than a tick sheet?
What constitutes acceptance, and what is retained against it? Retention held against a commissioning report with data in it is worth considerably more than retention held against delivery.
Warranty, and when the clock starts
This question costs the most and gets asked the least. A warranty running from shipment can lose several months to customs clearance and to a site that was not ready, and in Bangladesh that is a routine outcome rather than an unlucky one. Ask for cover to run from commissioning, or at minimum for a stated maximum interval between delivery and the start of cover.
What is excluded? Consumables, glassware, lamps, filaments, detectors with a rated life and anything described as a wear part may have different cover or exclusions. Ask for the exact warranty schedule in writing.
Does the warranty survive relocation of the instrument within the institution?
Do third party consumables void it, and if so, which ones? This matters more than it appears, because it determines whether you are tied to a single source for the life of the instrument.
What is the procedure and the realistic time for a warranty repair that needs a part shipped from the factory?
Training, spares, calibration and response
Training. How many people, to what level, on site or abroad, and when. Training delivered on the day of commissioning to whoever happens to be in the building is close to worthless. Ask for a refresher some months later, once real samples have raised real questions, and insist that the technician is trained alongside the researcher.
Spares. Request a recommended spares list quoted with the tender, with a lead time against each line and an indication of which parts are consumable, which are single source and which the supplier holds in Dhaka. A supplier who will not produce that list before the order will not produce it afterwards either.
Calibration.Is an initial certificate included, is it traceable, who performs the recurring calibration, and is that cost in the quotation? For anything feeding accredited or regulated results, this belongs in the tender and not in a conversation next year.
Response. Separate the time to acknowledge from the time to attend and the time to resolve, and have all three defined. Ask what changes when the instrument sits outside Dhaka, whether remote diagnostics are available and what network access they need, and how a fault is escalated to the manufacturer when the local team cannot clear it.
Continuity. Ask what happens to your support if the supplier stops representing the manufacturer, and whether the manufacturer will honour the warranty directly. It is an uncomfortable question and the answer is informative either way.
Software. Ask about licence terms after the warranty, the cost of version updates, whether the instrument still operates if a licence lapses, and how long the manufacturer commits to supporting the version you are buying.
None of these questions needs technical expertise to ask, and the quality of the written answers tells you more about the next ten years than any specification sheet will. The supplier who answers them precisely, in writing, before the order is the one to buy from.
Send Vvon the application, proposed configuration, site and target date together with these questions. The quotation should state the agreed scope, exclusions and items that still require manufacturer confirmation. Contact info@vvon.com.bd or +8801805987890.
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