11/09/2024

In times of increasing complexity and specialization, more and more companies are looking for ways to optimize their internal processes and save costs at the same time. Outsourcing to experienced service providers can offer immense advantages, especially in the areas of building infrastructure and laboratory support.

Interview with Klaus Kassner, Manager Lab Operations at Infraserv Höchst, conducted by Dr. Christoph Wienken

Mr. Kassner, as an external service provider, you and your team look after large parts of the building and laboratory infrastructure on site at the customer's premises. What makes your service special?

Klaus Kassner: At Infraserv, we offer a unique combination of traditional facility management and specialized laboratory support – all from a single source. Our customers benefit from the fact that they don't have to worry about all the different issues and different service providers. Our team covers a very broad spectrum of services: From building cleaning and maintenance to complex lab services. This relieves our customers considerably and allows them to concentrate fully on their core business.

What specific services do you offer in the area of Lab Services?

Klaus Kassner: Our service catalog in the area of lab services comprises over 50 different activities. These include, for example, refilling and reordering consumables, pipette management and the maintenance of laboratory equipment. We also take care of special tasks such as the inventory of newly procured equipment or the calibration of machines. We organize these tasks in such a way that they do not clash with other work in the laboratory and ensure that testing and documentation are carried out properly.

What are the particular challenges involved in supporting laboratories?

Klaus Kassner: A laboratory environment requires special knowledge and experience, especially when dealing with chemicals and hazardous substances. In addition, we sometimes work directly in our customers' IT systems, which requires a high quality of work and familiarity with the internal processes. The challenge is therefore to guarantee consistently high quality and at the same time ensure conformity in the laboratory.

And I always find it fascinating how we can make the entire laboratory operation run more smoothly through these sometimes small improvements.

How else do your customers benefit from working with an external service provider like Infraserv?

Klaus Kassner: In times of demographic change and the associated shortage of skilled workers, we offer our customers easy access to a team of experts. This enables the customer to ensure optimum care without having to build up their own staff with substitution arrangements and extensive expertise. Another advantage that is often not immediately visible to customers is standardized processes. This is because different locations of a company often have different processes for the same activities. By intensively examining the customer's existing processes , we can identify deviations and standardize these processes if required. It also helps that we have been operating our own laboratories at Industriepark Höchst for many years and can therefore draw on a wealth of experience and best practices. In addition, we can help to deepen the know-how of employees on site with training courses . And if our expertise ultimately leads to our customers working in a more relaxed and productive way, then we have done everything right.

Can you give us an example of how you proceed when introducing your services?

Klaus Kassner: It is always an exciting process to see how we can integrate ourselves as a partner into the customer's existing processes and then create real added value. At the beginning of the collaboration, we analyze the customer's existing processes and document them internally. This is because the customer's processes dictate how we have to carry out our tasks. It is also important to define clear interfaces. Here we also clarify which tasks we take on as routine activities and for which we are commissioned individually with a ticket system. We also have to define the limits of our support services. However, with our extensive catalog of services, most of the day-to-day tasks in a laboratory are well covered.

For which companies is your offer particularly interesting?

Klaus Kassner: Our services are aimed at companies of all sizes – from specific support in individual laboratories to comprehensive support for several sites in large corporations. Thanks to our experience and our holistic approach, we can respond very individually to the needs of our customers. This ranges from facility management consulting to bring processes up to standard to operational takeover on site at the customer's premises. Thanks to our integrated facility management , you receive all services relating to reliable building and laboratory operations from a single source, allowing you to focus on your core business with complete peace of mind.

Thank you very much, Mr. Kassner, for these insights into your work and Infraserv's services.

Klaus Kassner: With pleasure. I'm pleased that I was able to give you an insight into our work. And I hope that we can continue to help many companies work more efficiently and successfully.