VWR launches alliance with G&K Services
By Susan English
San Jose, CA– The cleanroom and controlled environment market, estimated to exceed $2 billion globally, continues to expand at a rapid rate, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. A “comer” in that exploding market is VWR Critical Environment Solutions, a division of VWR Scientific Products Corp. (West Chester, PA), with sales of over $1 billion annually. The company recently took a further step in consolidating its leading position as a supplier of products and services to manufacturing customers operating in cleanrooms, “white rooms,” and other critical environments by launching an exclusive joint marketing and service alliance with G&K Services, Inc., the fourth largest supplier of cleanroom garments and uniforms in North America, headquartered in Minneapolis.
The new alliance, operating under the name “Critical Environment Solutions, a service of VWR/G&K Services,” will provide “one-stop shopping”– a single-source solution for the purchase, rental and processing of cleanroom garments and related supplies, including reusables, disposables and recyclables. Most significantly, CES plans to offer “copy-exact” facility design and process controls, duplicating its Class 1 services at all its facilities. Semiconductor, pharmaceutical and other OEM`s will be offered such enhanced services as combined monthly billings, on-site personnel management, and current GMP or ISO 9001 quality programs.
CES`s initial effort is being launched in San Jose, where G&K Services` Cleanroom Division now operates the only Class 1 cleanroom laundry in the western United States, according to the company. Four Class 1 prototype “copy exact” processing facilities are scheduled to be built in Portland, Albuquerque, Phoenix and Denver during the 1996-97 calendar year. With revenues approaching $300 million in 1995, G&K has experienced a compound annual revenue growth rate of 15.2 percent over the last 10 years– 40 percent over the last three years. In 1997, the company intends to add ISO 9002 certification as part of its charter. Mike Scheerer, vice president of VWR/Critical Environment Solutions, says, “In our evaluation, as well as many customers` evaluation, the technology that G&K deploys is the market leading position.”
In September 1995, VWR purchased Baxter Corp.`s Industrial and Life Sciences business (McGaw Park, IL), which included a division targeting the R&D and quality control laboratory markets, and Baxter Critical Environment Solutions, with its focus on the cleanroom manufacturing marketplace. The move positioned VWR to play a major role in the R&D sector of the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, electronics, chemical, education, medical device and other industries. Then, just recently, VWR formed a “strategic alliance” with cleanroom vendor Clean Room Products (CRP; Ronkonkoma, NY) to market its line of custom storage bags (see “CRP/VWR Form Strategic Alliance” p. 8, CleanRooms, July 1996). The VWR/G&K alliance combines VWR`s marketing and distribution clout here and abroad–they`re half owned by international pharmaceutical firm E. Merck (Darmstadt, Germany)–and G&K`s reputation for customer service and advanced technology and quality control. The G&K partnership will also provide VWR with the contacts it needs with the network of smaller companies. It offers both large and small customers a single point of contact, single-source billing, and even integrated onsite or offsite personnel for inventory management, distribution, delivery and ordering of products and services from both VWR and G&K. This includes a convenient, industry-specific “hot sheet,” offering the full array of VWR`s products and supplies by phone.
Both companies agree, standard operating procedures in critical environment processing are essential to providing the kind of total quality assurance demanded by cleanroom garment customers, particularly in the semiconductor industry. Says G & K`s Marty Reader: “It`s exactly what the chip manufacturers would do. We want them to be able to rely on the fact that they can get exactly the same level of service anywhere in the world.” He adds that the company is “chatting with locations around the world,” and discovering that while standards are very similar, if not the same, “what they`re actually getting from the vendors is as diverse as the cultures they`re operating in!” The copy-exact system of quality process control being implemented in the four planned facilities ensures high quality consistent garment results at every location, says VWR`s Scheerer. “The contribution we make to our customers` business by providing this standardization in terms of their cash flow, earnings or expense line, quality of products and yield can`t necessarily be measured exactly, but it`s very, very substantial.” As for quality control or process management, G&K`s Reader doesn`t believe the cleanroom laundry industry has done a good job in maintaining a high level of cleanliness. “We have not, as an industry, delivered that,” he says. In describing G&K`s approach to building and managing cleanroom laundries, Reader says “Basically, what we did was to build the cleanroom and then put a laundry in it. Most laundry operators start from what they know–how to run a laundry. But what that doesn`t necessarily do is design a facility that`s perfect for a cleanroom-level quality product.” n