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Specifications. The way a lab compares them.

APP/ART builds the positioning, identity and website for scientific instrument and lab technology companies: instruments, microscopy, sequencing hardware, lab automation and research software bound to hardware. This page lists four things a lab checks before it buys, and what your site has to show for each.

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THE CHECKS
Four
DRAWN FROM
Two universities, one survey
OUR AUDIT
5 sites
NAMED NO ONE
1 of 5
Transient
1,024 ms
Resolving power
480,000
Central electrode
4 kV
Mass accuracy
< 1 ppm

Orbitrap analyser, after Makarov (Anal. Chem. 2000) and Thermo patents, drawn to the standard trap geometry. Run figures from the Orbitrap Exploris 480. Ion motion slowed a million times.

What we mean.

WHAT THE SECTOR COVERS

Specifications and applications, organised the way a lab manager compares instruments.

  • INSTRUMENTS
  • MICROSCOPY
  • SEQUENCING HARDWARE
  • LAB AUTOMATION
  • RESEARCH SOFTWARE BOUND TO HARDWARE

Four checks before a lab buys.

THE CHECKS ARE THEIRS · THE ORDER IS OURS
  1. CHECK 01 OF 04

    The case to buy.

    A US grant for a shared instrument needs at least three named major users, a plan for running and maintaining it, and committed space. This is one university's summary of the 2025 call.

    SOURCE: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, ON THE NIH SHARED INSTRUMENTATION GRANT

    ON YOUR SITE

    Give the lab what its case needs: who uses the instrument, what it costs to run, what room it takes.

  2. CHECK 02 OF 04

    The route to buy.

    At one US university a purchase skips competition only if there is a single source, a compatibility need, or an essential feature nobody else offers. A preference formed after a demonstration does not count.

    SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, PURCHASING POLICY · THE PAGE CARRIES 1996 DATES

    ON YOUR SITE

    State plainly what only your instrument does. That sentence is the sole source case.

  3. CHECK 03 OF 04

    The criteria.

    In Lab Manager's 2021 reader survey, 80 percent rated price and value very important, 75 percent after-sale support and warranty, and 74 percent compatibility with current systems.

    SOURCE: LAB MANAGER, 2021 · TRADE PRESS · SAMPLE SIZE NOT STATED

    ON YOUR SITE

    A price or a price range, the warranty, and what it connects to, on the product page.

  4. CHECK 04 OF 04

    Qualification after delivery.

    The long-standing model qualifies an instrument in four steps: design, installation, operation and performance. Under the US pharmacopoeia's chapter on it, complex systems with their own software take the most work.

    SOURCE: SPECTROSCOPY ONLINE, ON USP 1058 · TRADE PRESS

    ON YOUR SITE

    Say which qualification documents ship with the instrument.

Reputation, 68 percent. Online presence, 30.

THE SECTOR IN NUMBERS
68%RATED A VENDOR'S REPUTATION AND BRAND AWARENESS VERY IMPORTANT
30%RATED A VENDOR'S ONLINE PRESENCE VERY IMPORTANT. ANOTHER 55%: SOMEWHAT

SOURCE: LAB MANAGER, 2021 · TRADE PRESS · SAMPLE SIZE NOT STATED

Our reading: labs rate the website low and the reputation high. The website is where a stranger meets the reputation.

OUR OWN AUDIT · 45 SITES, SEPTEMBER 2026

What we found on five instrument sites.

Five is too few to say more.

Read the study
1 of 5SITES THAT NAME NO HUMAN BEING ANYWHERE

The same four stages, read for instruments.

ONE PACKAGE, FOUR STAGES
01 · FOUNDATION

Brand Foundation

What only your instrument does, in one sentence a procurement office can paste.

Read the stage
02 · STRUCTURE

Visual Identity

The instrument drawn and photographed as a product, not as a lab bench.

Read the stage
03 · FINISHED

Web Design

A comparison table a lab manager can read in one pass.

Read the stage
04 · UNDERNEATH

SEO and AI visibility

Specifications and applications as text, so a model can answer with them.

Read the stage
FAQS

What instrument founders ask.

NOT ANSWERED HERE?

tony@appart.gi

In Lab Manager's 2021 survey about two thirds said a lab manager or supervisor starts the request. About 40 percent said a member of the research team first spotted the need.

For a US shared instrument grant at one university: the major users, the core facility director, the department chair and whoever owns the room. At another, the procurement office approves any sole source case.

In a 2018 survey of more than 950 scientists, instruments were the category where reps were named most helpful. The publisher is a market research firm.

Nothing we read describes them. The sources are two US universities and one trade survey.
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