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Confocal Service variability
We have had a Leica TCD-4D and a Leica TCS-SP1 for the last 8 years.
Currently I feel that the Leica service organization is the best it has
been over that eight-year period.  Contrary to what Karl has said
regarding Leica service, I feel the current the service director is very
responsive and I believe is doing the best he can to operate an
effective service organization for the customer needs in USA bearing in
mind that it is a foreign owned company that controls the product
development, design, service and almost all other aspects of the
product. I have personally found him to be responsive to my concerns.
The Leica technician, John Zhang is a college graduate in bioengineering
from a respected US University. He has provided excellent service to our
institution in his three visits to our laboratory.  I would gladly have
him service our machine in the future. I would request his service for
difficult problems and have a high regard for his ability to problem
solve technical problems.

Why is there a difference of opinion on the service organization between
two knowledgeable users of similar confocal equipment?

 I feel the problem lies with the foreign manufactures and their lack of
providing consistent protocols to their service technicians. In America,
all point scanning confocal machines that are sold are built and
developed by foreign companies. These include the following:  Biorad
(England) Nikon (Japan) Olympus (Japan) Leica (Germany) and Zeiss
(Germany). These companies build the equipment and supply the necessary
protocols to their technicians to insure that their equipment is
functioning correctly. However there are NO published performance
specifications on the equipment from these companies. Therefore
technicians go into the field without performance specifications, which
may result in an inadequate knowledge on how to set up, align and fix
these machines.  Sometimes they succeed in repairing the machines to
acceptable subjective standards and sometimes they don't succeed in
solving the repair problems leaving the core operator very frustrated.
I believe this is the reason for the difference of opinion between
competent investigators about personnel in a specific service
organization.

It seems the service performed are evaluated by subjective criteria and
that is why a technician may not sometimes be able to adequately solve a
problem.  Where are the performance specifications for the machines? To
my knowledge not one of these manufacturers has a published set of
criteria or standards by which the investigator can insure his machine
is functioning properly. Thus it does not appear that service
technicians in the field have reliable published performance
specifications in their hands for the machines they are repairing.
Therefore I do not believe it is fair to hold an American service
manager or a technician responsible for the deficiencies of a foreign
company who has not provided the proper criteria to the service
organization to insure the machine is properly functioning. I think our
focus should be on the manufacturer and not the service technicians in
America who are trying to do the best they can without performance
specifications and specific protocols from the confocal manufacturers.
As a scientific community we should demand that these manufacturers
provide better criteria to insure our machines are functioning to the
level they were designed to perform at. They all are great machines when
they work properly.

We would gladly like any manufactures to comment to this confocal user
group on why there are NO performance specifications on their high
priced machines. This is not a subjective science and our data is
important to us and it should be not only be accurate but also
reproducible between different laboratories. Contrary to some opinion --
It is not only about Pretty Pictures. Some of us take measurements from
the machines and ask the machines to do critical things for our research
that require an aligned and properly functioning machine. Where are the
performance specifications on these machines?.
Bob

Robert M. Zucker, PhD
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Research and Development
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory
Reproductive Toxicology Division, MD 72
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 27711
Tel: 919-541-1585; fax 919-541-4017
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