Launched with a Vision 50 Years Ago in an Office Basement, Advanced Instruments Today is a World Leader in Diagnostic Testing Systems

Norwood, MA (PRWEB) June 20, 2005

With an investment of $5,000 and an office in the basement of his home, Bud Wiggin founded Advanced Instruments 50 years ago this year, launching what is today a worldwide supplier of diagnostic testing systems for dairy, medical and industrial laboratories.

Since the company’s incorporation in May 1955, Advanced Instruments has pioneered the measurement of osmolality in the clinical lab and today the company’s osmometers are in hospital clinical labs throughout the world.

When Wiggin, who died in 2003, started the company in his eastern Massachusetts home, he used $2,000 of his own money and $3,000 from two silent partners, says Ken Micciche, Advanced Instrument’s director of marketing.

“At the time of the company’s founding, people said the technology would be gone in 10 years,” Micciche says. “Here we are 50 years later, selling more and more instruments.”

From the beginning, Wiggin was determined to build his company into a substantial enterprise; one that sold “more and more instruments” and one that provided balanced growth, opportunity and market leadership.

Among Wiggin’s first business decisions, and as it turned out a perceptive one, was to obtain a worldwide distributorship for the cryoscope, or freezing-point apparatus, for which in 1955 there was a good but very narrow market among nephrologists.

Today, Advanced Instruments is the world’s foremost authority for the application of freezing point depression technology. The company designs and implements automated systems that help its customers improve productivity and product quality, meet regulatory requirements and reduces unnecessary operating expenses.

“We continue to lead the freezing-point osmometer market and continue to grow our product portfolio to further strengthen our position in clinical, industrial and dairy lab settings,”Micciche says.

Paying attention to the market, meeting customer needs and developing innovative technologies have been and continue to be hallmarks of the company’s long life, growth and success.

The company’s mission is to provide creative solutions for common laboratory problems, and laboratory professionals look to Advanced Instruments for exceptional customer support and leading edge tools for the diagnostic laboratory.

“What it really comes down to is our ability to provide technical after-sales support, application support and field services, whether direct through us or through our authorized distribution network to the customers,” Micciche says. “When our customers have problems, Advanced Instruments is able to address them and satisfy our customers’ needs.”

While the customers’ needs have been a top concern, Advanced Instruments also has been nimble in deploying a measured acquisition strategy to grow the company. In 1967, for example, Advanced Instruments acquired Fiske Associates, the designer and builder of the world’s first thermister-based osmometers and cryoscopes. All Fiske freezing-point instruments use state-of-the art microprocessor technology and are backed by Fiske’s award winning Hotline® Service and Customer Care Team.

The purchase of Spiral Biotech Inc. in 1998 was another significant Advanced Instruments acquisition. Spiral Biotech first commercialized the technique of spiral plating and has focused on automating the pre-analytical and analytical steps involved with traditional microbial enumeration.

As the company has grown through acquisition and innovative technologies, Advanced Instruments continued supporting its customers and aggressively staying ahead of the technology curve. It has been responsible for a broad range of industry milestones during the past 50 years.

Among them:

• Pioneering use of osmometry in a clinical setting via educational seminars and physician training.
• Inventing the rapid phosphatase method for determining proper pasteurization in milk products and proper cooking in meat, poultry and shellfish products.
• Introducing a novel means of counting cancer cells in agar, dramatically reducing manual labor and increasing sensitivity.
• Combining freezing point technology with the automated analyte test system for use by pharmaceutical/biotechnology laboratories.

“We have stayed in the forefront of the technologies that have enabled us to maintain market leadership,” Micciche says. “The reason any company stays in business for 50 years is that it produces something of value and quality for its customers. We have added to the product portfolio and that has given us greater opportunity to grow the revenue steam. But, at the end of the day, we are in business because we take care of our customers.”

About Advanced Instruments

Founded in 1955, Advanced Instruments, Inc. is a leading supplier of analytical instruments and test kits for the food, dairy, and industrial microbiology markets. Based in Norwood, Massachusetts, USA, the company also produces Fiske® Associates brand diagnostic instruments and operates Spiral Biotech, Inc., and Delta Instruments as wholly-owned subsidiaries. A worldwide network of direct sales people and independent distributors supports Advanced Instruments’ products. The company can be found online at http://www.aicompanies.com/ or contact customer service at 800-225-4034 or +1-781-320-9000.

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