To: National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL)
Customers
From: Gregory B. Mohrman, Chief, NWQL
Subject: New Pricing List
The new pricing list for laboratory
analyses for FY 2001 has just been completed and is available for use. Publication of the listing was delayed
because significant changes to our pricing structure were being developed and
NWQL facility cost decisions were being made.
The new price list will be applied to all samples logged in at the NWQL
on or after October 1, 2000.
An overall 8% price increase for FY01 was decided in
discussions with the Office of Water Quality and the Water Resources
Division. You will discover that some
parameter (lab code) and schedule prices may have risen by as much as 15% or
decreased by up to 10%. The pricing
list reflects our decision to implement a new pricing model and begin to
evaluate its effectiveness.
The NWQL pricing list is based upon an extensive
analysis of the actual cost for the production of data in the laboratory. The pricing model provides the NWQL with a
comprehensive review of all elements required to produce a piece of data. The new pricing strategy we have developed
will continue to undergo review and revision as we gain experience and confidence
in its ability to accurately reflect our business needs. The longer-term benefit to you, the
customer, is that we now have a powerful tool to help us assess where we need
to be more efficient and target areas for product development and improvement.
Low demand methods, defined as those for which we
have less than 50 organic or less than 250 inorganic requests per year, will
now be considered as custom. These
methods and schedules are still included in the price list but the cost is
presented as $9999. Customers will need
to contact us for specific pricing quotes.
The newly defined custom labcodes will be removed from all existing
schedules. Therefore, customers who
have been using Inorganic Schedules that contain custom labcodes will need to
contact the laboratory to find an alternate method or set up a custom proposal.
NWQL staff is prepared to assist with identifying other lab codes or schedules
that may be substituted for your need, if available, and to provide you with a
price quote on a case-by-case basis.
The goal is to work with individual customers to meet your analytical
needs with the most cost efficiency.
We ask that you contact the NWQL contact points
listed below with your questions, concerns, and specific needs, allow our
experienced staff to help you with planning your analytical services and afford
us the opportunity to deal with your questions individually. In addition, if you visit our website at URL
http://wwwnwql.cr.usgs.gov/USGS/faq.html
we have tried to answer some of the questions you may have.
Our
commitment to you is that we will aggressively seek to be the most efficient
laboratory operation we can be. With
this comes the challenge we have made to ourselves to continuously seek ideas,
methods, and processes that will reduce our costs thereby benefiting our
customers. We also commit ourselves to
continually providing you with superior quality laboratory analyses and support
services. We will listen and respond to
your current and future needs as we strive to be your water laboratory of
choice. Thank you for your patience as
we worked our way through this process and again, please direct specific
customer service questions and inquiries to the following NWQL staff members:
Organic
Analysis Mark Burkhardt, 303-236-3250 (email: mrburk@usgs.gov) or Ralph White,
303-236-3251 (email: wrwhite@usgs.gov)
Inorganic
Analysis Linda Pratt, 303-236-3150 (email: lkpratt@usgs.gov) or Harold Ardourel,
303-236-3151 (email: ardourel@usgs.gov)
Biological
Analysis Steve Moulton, 303-236-3493 (email: smoulto@usgs.gov) or Marsha Siebenmann,
303-236-3491 (email: msieben@usgs.gov)
Radio
Chemistry Ann Mullin, 303-236-3480 (email: ahmullin@usgs.gov) or Mark Burkhardt,
303-236-3250 (email: mrburk@usgs.gov).
Laboratory
Schedules Steve Glodt, 303-236-3721 (email: srglodt@usgs.gov)