Optimally maintained with safety

In the laboratory environment, the safety of employees and processes is always the top priority. Regular and professional maintenance of fume cupboards and other laboratory equipment is essential for this. This is also prescribed by law in various directives and regulations. One challenge here is that laboratory environments are often characterized by equipment and technologies from different suppliers.  However, this does not matter when our experts carry out maintenance work: our service team is not only familiar with Waldner's own systems, but also offers competent and reliable support for equipment from other manufacturers. This benefits customers in many ways: they can use a comprehensive service package for their entire laboratory environment, have a single point of contact and enjoy maximum legal certainty with regard to their maintenance processes. It couldn't be simpler or more efficient.  

More than almost any other work area, laboratory environments are subject to particularly strict requirements when it comes to the safety of people and processes. This applies above all to the regular maintenance of equipment, which is precisely regulated in various legal provisions. For example, Section 4 (3) of the Workplace Ordinance requires employers to maintain certain safety equipment and ventilation systems and to check their functionality at regular intervals. The “Safe working in laboratories” guidelines of the German Accident Insurance contain special regulations for laboratories. The regulations specify exactly which requirements and protective measures for occupational safety and health protection must be met in laboratory environments. Finally, the “Technical Rules for Hazardous Substances” also include special safety regulations for laboratories in which chemical or physical methods are used for the preparation, analysis or application of hazardous substances.  

Waldner as a reliable partner for laboratory maintenance  

In order to reliably comply with the aforementioned legal regulations, safety-relevant laboratory components must be comprehensively inspected and maintained on an annual basis. This primarily affects fume cupboards, monitoring and control systems and safety cabinets. This obligation means a great deal of effort for companies - especially if they operate a large number of maintenance-relevant laboratory facilities. Those responsible need professional and technically experienced partners on whom they can rely 100 percent. Waldner is very well positioned in this respect and offers competent maintenance services for all common fume cupboard types. Thanks to our dense service network of over 50 qualified specialists, we are able to operate close to our customers throughout Germany.  

Our experts also check the settings of all monitoring and control components. This includes zero-point adjustment, basic calibration and parameterization using diagnostic software. The service technicians also inspect all types of safety storage cabinets such as solvent, acid and alkali, chemical and pressurized gas cylinder cabinets as part of the maintenance and thus ensure the functionality of the fire protection valves, door closing and interlocking, for example. Last but not least, our service portfolio also includes the maintenance of extraction units as well as electrical and sanitary inspections. 

Trained service staff ensure high quality standards  

What is special: Waldner offers professional maintenance services not only for its own systems, but also for laboratory components from other manufacturers - worldwide. In order to successfully meet this demand, highly qualified and first-class trained employees are required. “Our service personnel are our most important asset. Thanks to extensive investment in their training and further education, we can maintain very high quality standards when servicing safety-relevant laboratory equipment,” says Sascha Günther, Head of Field Service for the business unit Lab Space Solutions. The prospective service technicians take part in intensive training and courses at the training center at the Waldner headquarters in Wangen to qualify them for their challenging work. “There are a lot of systems on the market, some of which are complex, and our employees have to build up detailed expertise in them. Some companies are also still using older technologies that require special know-how,” adds Sascha Günther. 

What's more, most customers have a heterogeneous laboratory landscape consisting of a wide variety of components from both Waldner and other suppliers. “Here, we offer an end-to-end complete package for the entire laboratory architecture and also carry out professional maintenance work across manufacturers. We can also access the software systems of other suppliers. This means that the customer has just one point of contact who takes care of the entire service workflow. They benefit from absolutely legally compliant maintenance and can reliably comply with all legal regulations,” confirms the service expert. 

Minimal downtime thanks to high availability of spare parts  

If a fault is discovered during the maintenance process, in many cases the corresponding repair can be carried out immediately afterwards. This is because the service technicians carry 95 percent of all relevant spare parts with them. This means that the system in question is quickly ready for use again, which minimizes downtimes and saves costs. There is also an efficient and cost-effective solution for older fume cupboards for which spare parts are no longer available: thanks to appropriate conversion kits for current monitoring and control components, customers continue to benefit from modern and sustainable fume cupboards that even offer advantages in terms of energy savings. If a fault occurs outside the maintenance cycle, it can also be identified and localized remotely. For this purpose, Waldner provides customers with a communication module that allows the service employee from the headquarters to access the software of the laboratory equipment remotely. Using VR glasses, the customer can then be safely guided through the fault analysis remotely so that the fault can be rectified quickly and easily.