To our customers and vendors,

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire world. As the days wear on, it is crucial to stay vigilant. All of us have a social responsibility, not just to the most vulnerable, but to our communities as a whole. LabtronX takes that responsibility very seriously.

Essential Work
Being primarily in the Water Industry, CISA (Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency of the US Department of Homeland Security) defines LabtronX as having essential infrastructure workers. The maintenance, calibration, and repair of and supply sales for quality control lab equipment and continuous monitoring equipment is needed to maintain our nation’s water utilities’ safety, sanitation, and essential operations.

It is important to note that LabtronX’s reach into essential services is not limited to the water industry. LabtronX also includes other sectors we are proud to serve. We will be supporting medical and healthcare, food, defense, transportation, energy, and public works industries.

While the work to maintain services at these many facilities falls most significantly on the operators at each location, it is essential that they know we are here ready, willing, and able to help. The laboratory equipment must remain accurate and reliable.

Partnership Agreement

There are a few necessary steps to which we all must adhere. Agreeing to these will ensure that doing essential business together will not risk the operation of our critical infrastructures:

Personal Conduct

• Watch your distance; employees will avoid being within 6 feet of others
• Wash Hands; employees will regularly wash hands and use hand sanitizer
• Wear appropriate facemasks
• Cover Coughs and Sneezes
• Avoid Touching Face
• Disinfect Frequently Touched Surfaces and Items

Illness Procedures

• Employees will be sent home for isolation when they have any symptoms of illness.
• Employees sent home for isolation will get tested for COVID.
• If the test results are negative, employees may return to work when fever-free.
• If the test results are positive, employees may return to work after being fever-free for 24 hours and a minimum of 10 days from the first symptoms has passed.

COVID Contact

• Employees who have had close or unprotected contact with a symptomatic individual who tests positive for COVID must be sent home for quarantine for a minimum of 14 days from the instance of contact.
• A COVID test will be conducted if, during quarantine, the employee has any symptoms of illness.
• If the test results are negative, the quarantined employees may return to work when fever-free at the end of the 14 day quarantine period.
• If the test results are positive, employees may return to work after being fever-free for 24 hours and a minimum of 10 days from the first symptoms has passed.

Notification

• When an employee tests positive for COVID, and there was a possibility of contact with other company’s employees within the past 14 days, The COVID positive employee’s company will notify those companies of the positive test result and the date of the first symptoms.

Please let us know if there are any additional guidances to which you would like us to adhere. Things change as we learn more about the virus and its spread. For this reason, we all must stay in communication about our procedures and policies. If you have any questions about this or your equipment and supplies, as I said before, LabtronX is here for you.

Thanks for being a valued business partner,

Eric A. Link

CEO/Owner

LabtronX

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”  This is something we all heard growing up in school.  Columbus proposed to sail due west from the Canary Islands (just off the coast of northern Africa) in hopes to find Japan and the riches of the East Indies.  His plan would have worked, except there was a bunch of land in the way.  He ended up landing in the Bahamas, which he called San Salvador.

Nearly 500 years later, Steven Callahan set sail from the Canary Islands to repeat the Columbus voyage.  While Columbus had three large ships and a full compliment of crew and provisions, Steven was alone on a small sailboat.  Six days after setting sail, the boat sank, leaving Steven stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  He was left with a 5 foot life raft, 3 pounds of food, 8 pints of water, a solar still, and a makeshift spear.

Every day on the raft was about survival.  He had to catch fish to eat, properly set his solar still to collect small amounts of fresh water, and contend with sunburn and shark attacks.  Each day, he would wake up to face this unpleasant reality.  On day 43, it got worse.  His raft sprung a leak that he could not patch, and he had to add the additional task of keeping the boat afloat manually.  He did this for 33 more days, until on day 76, he was rescued.  With no control of his direction for 76 days, Steven had drifted 1800 miles away from where his boat had first sunk.  

In the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes, “If you do nothing, you WILL get somewhere.”  True – and it might be 1800 miles away from where you started.  However, if you decide to do something, you have a much better chance of getting closer to where you want to be.  Being reactive, dealing with the day to day problems of work, home, and community, is merely surviving, like Steven in his liferaft.  Instead, follow the #1 habit of of highly effective people, and “be proactive.”  Decide where you want to go, and chart a course.

(Continue to Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1)

When Columbus set sail from the Canary Islands, he had to do more than follow the compass due west.  As we saw with Steven, there are currents that also must be taken into account.  These currents will cause the ship to drift off course, even though it appears to be heading in the correct direction the whole time.  If Columbus wanted to go due west (270 degrees), but there were southern currents (maybe 225 degrees), he might actually have to steer a more northerly course (maybe 300 degrees) in order to go due west.

The same thing happens with our lab equipment.  Over time, the accuracy and reliability of any instrument is subject to drift.  You may think you are headed to San Salvador, but may end up in Trinidad.  When calibration and maintenance is performed, an “As Found” reading is often recorded.  This reading lets you know how far your instrument’s accuracy has drifted.  You may think you are in San Salvador, but the “As Found” reading may let you know that you have actually been in Trinidad for some time.

What needs to be determined is: what is the acceptable drift or tolerance of a particular instrument or test?  This value can then be used to qualify the “As Found” reading as a passed or failed reading.  If “As Found” failures occur, there are two things we can do to prevent this in the future.  We can try to control the factors that create the drift, and/or we can increase the frequency of our calibration and maintenance.

(Continue to Part 3)