Eclipsing the competition

With the ever-increasing emphasis on health and safety in the food and drink industry, it is imperative that there are professional testing services available to ensure that the very highest standards of quality are maintained. One company that has been providing these services, not just to the food and drink industry but also to the dairy, water and pharmaceutical sectors, is the Eclipse Scientific Group.

With over 20 years experience in the testing market, Eclipse Scientific Group takes pride in delivering the highest standards of service with the utmost integrity. Each of its 11 laboratories across the UK and Ireland is UKAS or INAB accredited to ISO 17025 with sites also approved by major retailers and leading blue-chip manufacturers. The independent Quality department within Eclipse undertakes a regular internal programme of self-inspection to ensure that its exacting standards are upheld.

Sales and Marketing Director Nigel Richards comments, “During the last two years, a new senior management team has been brought into Eclipse with the aim of giving the company a fresh focus and some fresh thinking. Two of the most significant appointments in 2009 included the arrival of Sarah Hammond, who joined as IT Director in June, and Declan Burns who joined as Operations Director in August. The time was right time to take a step back and look at what we were doing and what we wanted to achieve and we felt that by recruiting experienced professionals with a more rounded knowledge base we have brought a new breadth of vision and direction to the company.

“We inherited a good solid business with a broad and loyal customer base and have simply sought to build upon these foundations by defining the Eclipse brand more clearly and promoting it more prominently to a wider audience. We have also realigned the business so that customer service and the integrity of our testing is at the very centre of everything we do. This is particularly important for a multi-site operation such as Eclipse as our customers need to be assured that we can deliver the same high standards of service across the group, whether they are using one of our laboratories in Trowbridge, Sittingbourne or Chatteris.

“Another important factor in achieving this consistency across the group is communication. Since 2009 we have been running regular monthly departmental meetings so that every employee, whatever their role, is made aware of our key objectives and the progress that we are making as a business. We also work hard to keep in touch with our customers and last year overhauled our feedback process with an ongoing survey. This entails our Customer Service Team phoning a number of customers every single day to monitor the quality of service they are receiving from us. We then use the information that we collect to improve every aspect of what we do. By calling customers directly rather than simply e-mailing out a questionnaire we can get a more honest and representative view of how they rate us and what we need to do to make our service even better in the future.

An integral part of any laboratory service package today is IT and this was the main reason why we appointed someone as experienced as Sarah Hammond to head up this area within Eclipse. Since joining us, Sarah has been responsible for the complete overhaul of our customer portal and for the launch of what we call ‘EOS’ – Eclipse Online Solutions in November 2009. This is a web-based system enables customers to register their samples on-line as well as to track the progress of the analysis and then plot the results via a series of different ‘dashboards’ or charts. The system has evolved significantly since its launch with many new innovations having been added as a direct result of customer feedback. For example, we now have a ‘Mobile Light’ version, which enables customers to register samples and access results via their mobile phone.”

Today, Eclipse offers one of the industry’s most comprehensive ranges of analytical testing services including microbiological, chemical and nutritional, pesticides and agrochemicals, vitamins and contaminants. Tests are regularly performed across a diverse range of product categories including finished products and ingredients from chilled, frozen and ambient sectors. The company also offers a comprehensive collection service with a fleet of over 40 refrigerated vans operating across the UK and Ireland to ensure that all samples arrive for testing in excellent condition.

As Richards states, “Keeping pace with the rapidly changing demands of manufactures and consumers is always a major challenge. However, at Eclipse we believe that we have adapted well to these changes and we will continue to invest in our business – in our laboratories, in IT and in our staff – to ensure that we remain true to our very simple mission statement of ‘Testing; Integrity; Service.’”

For further information please telephone 01354 697 028 or visit www.eclipsescientific.co.uk