Flora Tropika

Friday, February 24, 2012

Visit to see ERLA Equipment at PORIM

Dr. Midhza recommended us to get quotation from ERLA. This is a lab supplier which used to sell equipment to UPM. I've never heard about it. So I browse the web and called the numbers ... 'sorry, the number is no longer available'. Grrr.. is this company still exist? I call the operator and fortunately got it.The company has changed its office and not yet updating the web.

A lady, Siti Hajar, attended my call and was cooperative enough to get my requests written down. She would send me the quotation for laminar flow first. The rest she had to wait till her boss comes back from Dubai. Aikk.. seems everybody could not give the quote except the boss. I have doubt about this already.

But Hajar finally emailed me the quotation. Item quoted was a laminar air flow, or I shall shortened it as LAF - a 4 and 6 feet. I prefer the 6 feet LAF and the price is about RM7,900. It seems expensive and on top of that so many optional accessories. Good business tactics! nevertheless, the length matters for me, not the accessories though.

Let's learn what is laminar air flow ok!

This is how the laminar flow looks like

There are 2 types of laminar flow either horizontal or vertical air flow

Description on what VFM/CFM does

I kept quite for few days and asked again Hajar to visit the site office - just to check around the equipment. On 22/2, I took half day leave and pick up Hj Naza at Nilai commuter station and off we went to PORIM. Actually their manufacturing site is at Seri Kembangan but because there was nobody there to entertain us, Hajar asked me to meet Mikhail (I kept calling him Gabriel.. haha). We arrived at about 2 pm, and head straight to tissue culture building. Mikhail, greeted us and brought us to a lab - full of LAF. Wow! it was full of ERLA. 'Helmi, we are major laminar flow supplier for PORIM'.. yea, now I believe it.

Before we parted, Mikhail promised to give full quotation for items that we want. I hope he can give us as soon as possible coz the 6 feet LAF order will take a minimum 3 weeks to get ready. Where did we go after that? Haha, we went to Mr. Lee's house to check around new orchids just arrived from Irian!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Visit to Segar Alatan Equipment at Putra Mahkota

A small commercial lab like ours may not need sophisticated items. I've been looking around but thank God that we have friends like Dr. Mihdzar from UPM who has been very helpful in advising us what to look for in buying these expensive items. We visited him at his office and the tissue culture lab at UPM. Surely, the equipment there is first class.. yeah talking about spending 'Government' money, haha.

Looking for advice is something that I think new entrepreneur should do before embarking on any projects. I also remember visited Dr. Kodiswaran (some time in 2010) at FRIM asking his opinion on tissue culture market, how to go about it, the potential market etc. That guy was also helpful and gave me few things which I still remember till now. In fact, 'outsourcing tissue culture work' is one of the projects that I aim to embark once our lab is fully operational.

Well.. back to items that I need... first I visited Segar Alatan at Putra Mahkota in January 2012. A well established local manufacturer. I remember Hj Naza has requested quotation from this company way back in 2009. Due to financial constraint it didn't go thru.

The price was a bit expensive in my opinion but the service was good, quite responsive to my request for quotation and arrangement for site visit. The laminar air flow for 4' was about 10k (back in 2009, it was only about 7,500-8,000). Isk3.. asked why significant increase in price - 'we provide auto nowadays maa. You see ar, no need to calculate manually when to change infra red bulb etc".. yeah2 I agree! How about manual one? They got it as well but the price difference is not significant ~RM500-1000.

Laminar Air Flow

Autoclave

Overall, the items are presentable (reliable in my opinion), service maintenance is provided at reasonable price. Well. but i'll look for experts advice on this!

The Lab Renovation Is Completed!

Our lab has completed as of 23 February 2012. That guy, Zainol, earned RM7,500 and he's working alone! Talking about reaping the benefits himself.. so difficult to ask him to do more jobs! fine.. this is the first and last time i use your service (really arr?).