What to ask a laboratory equipment supplier in Bangladesh before you sign
The technical evaluation is usually done well and the service terms are usually skimmed, which is where instruments die three years later. The installation, warranty, training, spares and response questions that belong in writing before the order.
The technical evaluation is usually done well. Somebody compares specifications line by line, checks the standards quoted and argues about detection limits. The commercial and service terms are usually skimmed, and that is where the instrument dies three years later, in perfect working order except for one part nobody can obtain.
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 normally sit outside it. Ask for the list 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.