I somewhat agree with what you said, though I'm in LA. It seems like you really believe that it's LA's failure that brings down DX. Then my question is why Siemens lays off people at other sites. In fact they let go even earlier than LA. Always remember as employees at DX, when we suck, we suck together.

I don't know Ed, but it sounds like that after 5 years Siemens has sent a no-nonsense, no excuses man to clean up the mess in LA. Whatever secrets LA has been keeping in order to keep them necessary to the supply chain will be pried out of them. 5 years?? Who says the Germans have no patience? They obvious did and have used it all up.

Get ready to see how the rest of the diagnostics business works wherein highly skilled, high paid R&D transfers products completely to the lower skilled and lower paid manufacturing and service people. Getting this job done and done quickly will take a big economic burden off of Siemens and it's long overdue. Those still in LA should consider themselves lucky in at least one way. I can't imagine another company that would have decided to shut a part of their business down and then let it take 5 years. Imagine if it had taken only 2 years as it should have and most of you would be been laid off just as the recession was at its worst rather than in a few more months when things are starting to get a bit better. While you can bemoan the loss of DPC as an entity and a culture, in many ways you got alot better deal than most people in your situation.

Two major changes LA is now dealing with:
1)The one day layoff schedule within dX turned out, once again, to be one huge lie.
US has an additional 600-800 layoffs to go through by next year.
2)Llanberis is now running LA.
DPC created Llanberis many years ago under the Z's.
Never thought they'd be running the show now.

What I do know is this: Ed Farrel will go through LA with a sledgehammer making changes as he see's necessary.
He turned Llanberis around but the mentality of the employee's is totally different.
This should be very interesting to watch.

I vote to stay with this thread. The 100 post limit no longer appears relevant.

HELLO EVERYONE

We definitely went over the 100 posts pretty fast this time.
So much is going on now.
Llanberis now controls LA! How strange is that. When will the 600-800 US layoffs take place?

Please continue posting at:
DPC-LA: 2012 DEUCE XXXII

These are strange times but sharing and staying informed here is our only option. DX just keeps sinking down the black money hole.

THANKS EVERYONE

So, a forward looking post.

Fate of former DPC: all that's left will be transferred to Llandberris (sp?), probably as fast as possible. When DX feels this task is complete, the remainder of former DPC employees will either be transferred or let go. I've heard the CrossPoint facility is very nice, so likely Siemens Real Estate will put it on the market and try to re-coup some money, there.

Fate of former Dade-Behring: this thread isn't too much about them, so I don't have enough information to hypothesize. Was their main location Deerfield, IL? When JRA and DQ left, and MR came and moved HQ to Tarrytown, did this weaken this group?

Fate of former Bayer: this thread isn't too much about them, either. Were they mainly based in Tarrytown, and do they have more momentum since this is now the HQ of DX?

Where does Glasgow fit in? Someone needs to draw a picture of the parts of DX...

Why humans can be brilliant: Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, ZZ, etc., and all the wonderful inventions and innovation they brought to the world.

Why humans can be insane: definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Per MBA education, 80% of Mergers and Acquisitions fail, and they also teach that the main reason is the inability to continue and integrate the culture of the company.

Why there's hope for humans: someone or some company will find a recipe to approve the above 80% statistic. Since it's all about culture integration, take a fresh approach and try something new. Hire a top-notch group of Cultural Anthropologists and see what they can come up with! Business consulting firms just aren't cutting it. Probably be a heck of a lot cheaper, too! The lack of trying fresh approaches on this problem is also hindered by the fact that this problem needs to be solved by BIG COMPANIES - where for the most part it's commodity (read group) thinking that remains supreme. We need a "Jack Welch" of Siemens - turn this big tanker to a forward looking direction! One thing is for certain, if some company figures out the "recipe", they'll have a huge competitive advantage until the others benchmark it and catch up.

I've brought up the subject of magic, or in plain English the DPC culture that was responsible for the company's success. The last post wants a forward looking view. I'm sorry but I don't see how there could be any "forward" w/ whatever is left of DPC's Immulite line. The primary inventive souls of the company are long gone and the innovation and quality can no longer match what was routine for the old company. Even most of the 2nd and 3rd string players are long gone, and none of the other divisions seem capable or wanting to advance Immulite issues. The line has no direction other than downwards it is sad to say. By foolishly disrupting the company culture, Siemens threw away the companies most valuable asset and severed away the future. There is no hope for Immulite except to retain as much of the customer base as possible and eke out some continued reagent sales or tranfer them to other platforms. None of the options has any real potential for Siemens to get back any significant percentage of the original sales price paid for DPC (~$1.9 billion). It was, is and will be a terrible situation for all involved in this tragic waste. Great job Siemens!

Previous post was backwards looking (which is fine and interesting), but how about a forward looking statement? Will work at DPC be transferred out and then shutdown, and if so, what's the timeline? What can current management at DX do to improve financial numbers - continue cost cutting measures and start developing new product lines, and for the later, what should the product lines be? Do they have any talent left to develop new product lines? Should they sell off parts of the business, should they buy more? Did they miss the boat on Immulite (or whatever the name of the company Roche bought)? Will they try yet another management change? Is the DX image "blown", and do the sales teams have any positive moral left to sell their products?

Reading the posts here, makes it sound like DX is a top-heavy pyramid ready to cave in and crush itself. Is this true? And if true, what can Siemens do after it's crushed? Write off their $12B investment to "experience building"? Can Siemens absorb such a loss? Will the world even miss Siemens DX?

Siemens may have destroyed a great company, but I would submit that the company was, for all purposes, destroyed the moment the Z's signed their names to the deal. And that was simply the final nail in the coffin. DPC would not have been the first to undergo major changes when the founding mother and father departed. And I'm sure that many at DPC would easily accept the terms 'mother and father' when talking about the and major force behind what DPC was. I think it was fairly clear that MZ just wasn't into it in the same way. To him it was a business; to Sigi and Marilyn it was their life and blood and sweat. Once they left it was never going to be the same. MZ saw a way to get out with a nice pile of cash and Siemens saw DPC as a short term piece in their long term puzzle. The odds that MZ could have gotten a comparable price from an independent investment group or from a large company that would have left DPC intact in terms of culture were zero. At the time of the sale, the 'magic', esprit de corps, teamwork, team spirt, or whatever you want to call it was pretty much doomed.

I've posted many times about the magic at DPC and always got hammered for those comments but the last several days of postings have been very civil, smart, and well written. Maybe my comments were better recieved when it was clearer that I was talking about the total package that is needed for the "magic"; great employees, management that gives anyone dedicated to the company's cause respect, strong clear leadership and leaders that work at least as hard as they expect their employees to work. As I pointed out the bigwigs at DPC also didn't play the "Queen Bee Game" where the top positions were full of outlandish perks and social gatherings that clearly favored the haves and the have nots. They just didn't have many perks I was aware of beyond the usual business meetings. Even the offices were very Spartan. I think all of this stuff furthers company culture w/o any artificial push from rah, rah speeches. When your leaders are doing more and trying harder than you are, it is much more likely that you will make greater efforts yourself and enjoy your daily rituals much more despite the greater efforts needed! That's when the magic follows. I wasn't trying to ascert that DPC employees were all organically better. We were better because the entire culture made us better and it made DPC's leaders better, and therefore the company was better. The magic doesn't come from experience, superior intelligence, pHD degrees, better dressed or better spoken employees, it comes from the synergy that comes together when all of this happens at the same time for a long enough period and with the right group of individuals. It does not happen nearly often enough in industry. I also think that diagnostics is not a business that lends itself to the type of integration that Siemens aspired to. If one takes 3 digital high tech companies and try the same integration, I think the chances are much better for success. Why? Any computer/ software engineer can adapt immediately to another companies devices since the way the technology works travels well as everyone is basically on the same page. Not so with diagnostics. Its much more comparable to cooking at an elite level. You give 10 cooks the same recipe and you will get ten dishes that may taste similar, but none will be exactly alike and a few will be terrible and a few will be delightful. I think we can all relate to this example, and I think this was a huge issue not addressed by the Siemens elite because of their arrogance. They were in over their heads and didn't even know it. Too bad they had to destroy a great company in order to get religion.

Where are the wise old ants in Siemens????
END QUOTE

They left with the last layoff.

I've read most of your posts here. I can tell you DX doesn't not work on those models.
It has already been run into the ground.
As far as LA is concerned, Ed Farrel, will finish the job.
He already scheduled his people to come to LA and see what the problems are and transfer things back to Llanberis.

He also just had a layoff of 31 at his Site and is decreasing his manufacturing lead time in half. What do you think he'll be doing to the sleepyheads in LA?
DX also still has 600-800 layoffs scheduled as well through next year.

On the imaging side, Siemens (and its competitors, they benchmark each other like crazy so no one ever really stands out), most of the profit is actually in the service contracts. They make minimal, and at times NO profit on the sale of the systems, nor in the first year during the warranty period. Then service contracts kick in, and most customers must buy them. Priced usually around 10% of cost of scanner. So, Imaging Service organizations are very profitable and command a fair amount of power. I would guess this may be similar in the DX business, but instead of service contracts your profit comes from consumables, whose lifecycle is probably quite fast relative to a yearly service contract.

DX is definitely a different model, but it doesn't sound like rocket science. That said, Siemens loves its process harmonization and if your sales cycles and service contracts are too from the norm, well... best explained by an analogy from the movie A Bugs Life. All the ants are in a line, heading back to the ant hill with food, when a leaf falls and breaks their line. Some of the ants can no longer see the ants in front of them and they panic. Older ants are standing by, calm down the panicked ants, and bravely lead them around the leaf until they can see the ant line again.

Where are the wise old ants in Siemens????

What you say is fair and logical. However, your examples are ones in which Siemens added to an existing business with products that were similar in nature. In the case of diagnostics, one sells (or leases) a fairly large, expensive piece of equipment that might have a use life of 7-10 years and, in that respect, DX is similar to imaging. However, the big difference is that during the lifetime of the instrument, Siemens is making reagents, calibrators, controls and ancillary materials for their instrument and, for most diagnostics companies, most of the profit is in this aftermarket. Furthermore, diagnostics requires that more tests inevitably get added to the menu. These differences may sound trivial, but they affect the entire business model and in many ways the personnel requiremnts. In diagnostics, sales people are usually following up with existing customers to get them to buy more different tests on their Siemens instruments, both chemistry and engineering manufacturing R&D people are needed for example. It may take Siemens longer to get its hands around this new business model as they try to integrate DX into the rest of their organization ... and the clock is ticking. For those who remain at the end of the year, we can only hope you are right and that Siemens will turn things around.

Would it be fair to say that Siemens makes the vast majority of its money on its organically grown businesses, or at least businesses they purchased in Germany, Austria and Switzerland? If this premise is true, can they not see the pattern and stick with what their good at???

Just FYI - their "horses" in the imaging business are CT (based in Germany), MRI (based in Germany) and interventional X-ray (called AX, based in Germany). For ultrasound they acquired an American company (Acuson), probably 8 yrs ago or so. This acquisition plus their current ultrasound business made them number 1 in market share. Last I heard, probably two years ago, they were number 4... Molecular Imaging has been their American acquisition success story. Bought Nuclear Chicago for the gamma camera business, probably 20 years ago, and then in 2005 bought the PET part in Tennessee - bought a joint venture they had started about 10 years earlier. So, PET part was "eased" into Siemens - and guess what, it's been profitable and a much less bumpy ride.

A related business, in radiation therapy, they bought a California company, dismantled it, moved it to Germany, and last December announced they are canceling the main project and shutting down this business. They will play in this market by being the "imaging partner of choice".

Rocket science? I think not! Take the time to understand the culture of the company you're buying, either by having company being in the SAME culture of parent company, or start with joint venture and ease small company into big company. If it's not going well, don't buy it! The value of companies lies in the culture and the EMPLOYEES, not in the numbers on spreadsheets, which probably have a heck of a lot of "innovation" behind it!

It's more of adaptive (American) vs stubborn (German), rather than big vs small. Think GE-run NBC, which is at lowest rating among major networks. But it never turned out as disastrous as Siemens-run DX.

In-house workshops, consultants and other training can be helpful. A good analogy would be in sports. All the courses and training in the world cannot make a sports hero out of someone with no talent, but training and good coaching can take raw talent and turn it into something exceptional.

As far as corporate culture is concerned, the biggest problem is that most companies have one that they (e.g, management and tradition) feel is the best and that all new employees, be they new hires or new acquires, will recognize as truly superior and adapt to automatically. This is logical since most large companies are successful by one measure or another and why would anyone argue with success? Siemens make money in imaging; Siemens makes money with trains; Siemens makes money in electrical products. So why would anyone at Siemens believe that the same culture that made them successful in the past not be applicable to DX? The fact that diagnostics is a completely diffeent kind of business compared to their existing businesses is irrelevant to Siemens, as it was to Bayer and it looks like the results are quite the same for each. It is truly amazing to watch Siemens follow almost the same path as Bayer did after Bayer acquired Miles and Technicon.

"It just amazes me that companies do no get the importance of this kind of company culture."
END QUOTE

I think they get it, and want it, but just can't figure out how to MAKE it happen. It's the rare leader or coach who has this ability to build this culture - the Vince Lomarbi's, Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln's, etc. How often do individuals like these come along? And try as you might, it never works to emulate a great leader - you just have to BE one. Think of all the money companies spend on developing leaders - the workshops, outside consultants and coaches, does it *really* pay off?

Does it make sense to think of the upper management of large corporations more like Venture Capitalists? Persons who know very little about the domain of the business, and who have very little personal contact and interest in the employees? If so, then the best bet for employees like me is to present and "sell" projects to management. I just expected my management to be "leaders", not investors, and come up with the vision and strategic plans. If this is the reality, then I need to change my expectations which will change my actions. It's also hard to work for a group of persons who really don't care that much about me from a personal or even professional standpoint.

Thanks for pointing out that big companies CAN be a great place to work and make you feel like you are making a difference. I don't think I'm being fair to Siemens, either. I think there are groups within Siemens that have that culture, too. We only get to see such a small part of it. I guess we all have to keep searching until we find what we're looking for, and when we do find it, enjoy it while we've got it.

There are still large companies that perform well and have innovation. Apple, Microsoft, 3M, Johnson & Johnson (although they have had problems with absorbing McNeil), just to name a few. Even GM has shown it can pull together and work together internally to pull itself from the brink of death to being number one again. Most of these companies have part of their business in relatively stable, slow growth areas, but they maintain a structure and culture that allows for smaller innovative groups to thrive through internal investment in contrast to most small companies that have to rely on outside investment capital. Those who have interests in innovation and closely knit groups with a common goal that can operate free from constant management interference should have the mentality that does not generalize, but looks at real data and considers a variety of possibilities. So to say that all big companies are like Siemens is a big mistake and could lead people away from exciting and challenging careers fill with innovation. My advice is that if you are looking for a job or career, look at each possible company on its own merits. Don't categorize and don't generalize. Just as you are an individual, so, in some ways, are companies (and, no, I do not believe that companies are people -- sorry Mitt). Don't rule out a potential employer because of unscientific biases.

Great post! Which leads me to the question I always ask: can Corporate America (or anywhere) EVER capture that "High Performing Team" atmosphere, as MBAs like to call it? As mentioned before, most Mergers and Acquisitions fail because they cannot sustain the culture of the company being bought. So, let's look to anthropology - how are cultures typically built and maintained? Off the top of my head (and I only took one anthropology course in college):
1. Regional isolation
2. Common belief system such as a religion and local laws
3. Common enemies

The smaller the group you are, the easier it is to build a culture around all 3. However, 1 or 2 bad hires can wreck the entire culture - and there's little room for any error. So, you either perform quickly or die quickly.

Large companies hit hard on point 2, and at least to the sales and marketing teams, point 3. I've often felt like Siemens acts like a large religious organization, with their Employee magazines and values and motivation posters displayed around the factory. I don't mind all that, and I intrinsically try to live up to the Siemens values. What I can't stand is the hypocrisy of it all - often, those that live the values are discarded, and those that take shortcuts get promoted. Sadly, if the would ENFORCE the values, I think they'd have a decent shot at having their holy grail of a "High Performance Culture".

I think the fault really lies on being a publicly traded company. It's rare that companies in this realm can think much past the the next quarter...

It's not money that's the root of all evil - it's GREED!!! Humans need to take a lesson from the Native American Cultures - only kill what you need, no more, no less!

I'm the one who started w/ the posting on Friday about re-living the "magic" days at DPC.

I must say that I was very impressed by all of the posts that followed. They were all very well written and informative, but also cognizant of the working atmosphere that I was trying to convey. It is apparent that you all have experienced a stimulating work envitonment or at least something close to it. Those who have never been in this kind of environment are always dismissive and condescending because it does not register with them. After all it is easy to understand how difficult it would be for them to equate the work environment as a positive life changing stimulus despite the agony, pressure, low pay, competition, in-fighting and scrutiny that these magical environments can be. What they do not appreciate is the "rush", that feeling of accomplishing something that you know others cannot complete, that comes with this environment and it can have a tremendous impact on your personal satisfaction scale. This is the reason a guy like Steve Jobs works until he is near death even if he has enough money that he couldn't ever spend it all. It was more exciting for him than even traveling the world while trying to spend as much money as is physically possible. That is how powerful the feeling is. Now I'm not equating what we had at DPC to what Jobs was feeling but in a relative way, for us at the lower end, it was indeed "magical". There is another factor that I think is just as important for this magic to take hold. We all absolutely knew at DPC that the only thing management wanted from us was performance. I saw the most god awful looking people working for these guys, people so strange or unattractive that they would never get past the first interview anywhere else. But these people were fanatically loyal because DPC gave them respect. Because of this we all knew that management had your back as long as you had their's. Big company management has no clue as to how powerful an effect this kind of managemnet has on the workforce. We were also keenly aware that those in charge only did things on a daily basis to further the companies goals, and these directors/ managers were the hardest workers, with very little BS and none of the top guy's were there only for the ride and the perks that their positions usually grant. They worked their collective butts off and it rubbed off on everyone else who managed to stay. If you couldn't take the heat and quit DPC, you were the type that best worked for a big company and tried to do the least possible while collecting your paycheck and tying to be as invisible as possible; you all know the type. An army of dedicated DPC employees, exactly the opposite of these loser types, is what powered the DPC magic. It just amazes me that companies do no get the importance of this kind of company culture. My bet is that many successful startups had this very kind of magical culture to start with, at least up to the point they become big successes, before starting to lose it after being bought out. It's not just DPC that I admire, it is any company that gives it's employees this working environment, but DPC was the only one I experienced and I feel very fortunate to have done so.

Illegal businesses generally have really high profit margins. That's why criminals, blue and white collar, are willing to take the risk.

"Since investors don't know what they are doing, how can they "hire" someone or a group of people who are competent to do it for them? Complacency is pervasive in ALL companies and people's personal lives. That's how crap rises to the top."
END QUOTE

Agreed. Shareholders just move their money to the highest bidder, and by the time a company gets in trouble with their shareholders it's probably too late for anything but drastic changes. Shareholders also are clueless, and most don't care, what the business is that they've invested in. I am, afterall, a Shareholder of MANY companies, and I have no clue what the majority of them do or how they are run, not to mention exactly which companies I have invested in! I just move my money to a fund that seems to get consistent returns on investment. I do at least expect that they are not in an illegal business nor are doing illegal practices, and hope that the Regulatory Bodies police this for me...

Sometimes I wonder how humans survive and thrive at all. But then something wonderful happens and I'm amazed at the capacity humans have of doing great things! Just wish there was more of the later happening!

Last two posts were very helpful, thanks for sharing!

We certainly need some new inventions and innovation on so many fronts in Healthcare: products, management, reimbursement, Healthcare models, etc. The time is ripe for an all-around better way of doing things!

There was a time (I'm sure it's long over now) when engineers at HP (Hewlett-Packard) were expected, and encouraged, to boot-leg 20% of their time on their own ideas and projects. So wild ass innovation can be possible, even in large companies, with visionary management. Unfortunately, visionary management and Harvard MBAs are mutually exclusive.

Lack of innovation, complacency, etc. are also signs of a mature industry as are all of the consolidations. Perhaps the next step will be a less invasive technology and that will probably come from outside of the large corporations. Large, 'stable' corporations tend to be in predictable businesses which is something shareholders of these types of companies tend to like. Innovation in large companies tends to be incremental rather than revolutionary. There are still many people around who remember the good old growth days of diagnostics. It is fun to sit around and remember those days when many companies, not just DPC, were filled with excitement, teamwork, and intellectual stimulation.

My suggestion to those who still seek that kind of environment is to get out of diagnostics as it exists today. Look for companies trying to develop completely new (perhaps non-invasive) technologies. Keep in mind that many such companies will fail while only a few succeed. How many biotech companies were pulling in venture capital in the 80s? How many went on to be Genentechs? There are a few large companies that do have centers of innovation, skunk-works, or opportunities to work on out-of-the-box projects. Companies like 3M, and to some extent, J&J come to mind. But even in these kind of companies, the majority of people work on the routine and new ideas need to be more than just a 'wild-eyed' concept to get much funding. They usually need an internal business plan, but once the 'sale' is made to management, the entrapreneurial activities are allowed to proceed unfettered and with a large degree of independence.

It takes some looking around to find the kind of company that might have an environment more like what DPC once was and what Technicon once was. You will have to look around carefully. You may have to be willing to relocate. You will have to work on both your resume and interview skills to tailor them for such a position. Stay away from directly saying that you are looking for the magic you had at DPC; that simply shows a backward looking mentality. Always talk about the positive and the future; never badmouth your current employer or things you didn't like even in the old magic days. Talk about how you like to work in an high energy, innovative environment. Go easy on any bragging about how good you are, but at the same time make sure they are aware of your major past contributions and your skills (a balanced approach). Learn as much as you can about any company to which you apply (their products, their goals and their culture) before you apply and definitely before you interview. Be prepared to custom adjust your resume and cover letter to be specific to each company that you apply to.

And most of all, if you are going with a small startup type of company, make sure you understand the potential risks and rewards. Only a few will make it and most will fail.

Good luck on your future.

Siemens Shareholders won't demand things be fixed until they can't be fixed. Many hareholders lack the knowledge to make informed, intelligent decisions. They just send their money into a fund and let someone else manage it. Since investors don't know what they are doing, how can they "hire" someone or a group of people who are competent to do it for them? Complacency is pervasive in ALL companies and people's personal lives. That's how crap rises to the top.

The question is, what are the chances you can get a sense of fulfillment like we're talking below, at a LARGE CORPORATION? There are so many constraints, with the main one being the lack of freedom and resources to pursue what you think should be done. It has been shown over and over, and all you need to do is read the various threads about the various companies on this Rumor Mill blog, it's the "politicians/sales persons" who thrive in these environments. In the past at least, there was enough fat that companies could survive very poor decisions and lack of project execution. We're in famine now, and so many of these politician types have risen to the top during the feast times, that they're clueless for how to really run successful projects, much less a successful company. Product road maps lay barren, invention is unheard of, and innovation is only a buzz word. Hardly anyone in charge really knows how to fix this!

There is good news. All these companies are BUSINESSES, not government. There IS accountability at the highest level: the shareholders. If a company isn't given the return on investment that they think they can get somewhere else, they will pull their money out. Before that happens, they will make changes at the highest levels of management to see if they can't improve things. If nothing works, the company will eventually go bankrupt. For large conglomerates, this may mean selling off underperforming units or just shutting them down.

So, at least revolutions are not needed to overthrow bad businesses, they will eventually die on their own...

WE WERE LUCKY!!!!! WE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING WITH OUR LIVES THAT WAS BIGGER THAN OURSELVES!!!

Yes indeed, it is like the time I scored the winning touchdown for our high school football team; very hard to forget abd not re-live those feelings every now and then. It does seem somewhat sad to have to dwell on things past, but like this poster had said these type of things happen very few times in ones life and it actually feels good to be able to re-live those emotions repeatedly. I indeed have moved on in my career and make a lot more money and have what is certainly a much more glamorous position and title than I ever had at DPC. Yet nothing in my current career path is very fulfilling. I get along well, we all enjoy each others company (well most of the people) and all of us do as much as we can in our jobs but the tension, anticipation, and great moments of relief from seeing game changing project results are missing. The bench chemists have no contact w/ R&D management, and no one feels the need to take the leap of faith and suggest uncharted out-of-the-box suggestions. Everyone tends to tow the company line and not rock the boat. Very secure, very predictable, very boring and we never accomplish anything completely unexpected (at least it does not happen much). I have myself fallen into line with this industry standard, as I have kids now to support, and the big salary is very important to me now. It is just a job and when I move on I'll have very few memories of this place I'm sure, quite unlike how I remember DPC.

I agree with previous poster - take time to mourn the loss of the work of art, but move on to other opportunities. I have. It's just such an eye-opening experience that it boggles the mind. Why wouldn't a business do a better job of maintaining and increasing the value of the assets it buys? In the case of Siemens DX, I don't think they MEANT for this to happen. A good analogy are the pictures of the enormous Italian Cruise ship gone belly-up. How can you not be drawn into that story? And the more you learn of the captain and why didn't his employer do something about him long before, just makes you realize these big catastrophes are just a series of bad decisions and cover-ups.

I guess when something so large gets so far off track, only a catastrophe can correct it or end it... American auto industry had to go bankrupt, but they're doing much better now. Not sure how the euro-zone crisis will end a this point, either.

For the case of DX, it's clear the path its on is to cut costs until its financial numbers are in order, and then try to grow the business with other products. Row the boat as hard as you can, and just hope this course will get you into smoother waters!!! And if you don't believe it will, jump ship before it goes belly-up!

For those of you who were fortunate to have lived in the magic times, why not be thankful for what you had. Very few people are lucky enough to experience that kind of work environment. All good things come to an end, though and, in many ways, the Z's had taken DPC just about as far as it could go. Consolidation is a reality today. Beckman has been consolidated. Dade included former DuPont, Behring, and Syva and Bayer included former Miles, Technicon, and Chiron (formerly Corning). Sites and businesses get shut down all the time now. And it just seems to me that rather than bemoan your fate for five years and continuing your hostility to Siemens and Bayer and whoever, why not be thankful for what you had and just have the memory while you make your plans to move on in life and to hopefully find something that can come closer to what DPC once was. Even had Siemens had kept DPC intact and upgraded Immulite and used it as its main immuno engine, and held you in very high regard, your culture would have been eliminated and replaced with a large company culture and you would have been miserable.

Be grateful for what you had. You were very lucky.
Stop dwelling on what you think could have been. It's too negative.
Focus on what still can be. Think positive.

And if nothing else, take the above advice whenever you go on a job interview. Criticizing former employers or just about anything rarely impresses people who interview you.

You're welcome! It's like watching a precious work of art get burned just for the heat it gives while burning for all of 5 minutes - no other reason - because the person who lit the match had NO IDEA the true value of the piece.

Just remember, "tis better to have loved, than to have never loved at all".

WE WERE LUCKY!!!!! WE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING WITH OUR LIVES THAT WAS BIGGER THAN OURSELVES!!!

....So I "believe" what the previous poster is talking about.....

To the person who made this post, thanks so much for coming in from the outside to help the non-believers understand what I was trying to get across with the "magic" theme. I know we former DPC'ers sound obnoxious, but when the anger and vitriol starts up from the other guys, we want to hit back and it has nothing to do with tying to save the LA site from demise. It is already six feet under; we former DPC'ers understand that better than anyone! Most of the real "magic" has been gone for years. What you guys are laughing about at Cross Point, is indeed lacking much of the real "magic" that ruled in the compny years ago. Its just that the rubble that is currently Cross Point is the last residue of that remarkable company, almost like a tombstone we pay our respects to and cry over. We have long lost the great merger battle, we get that. What we fuss about is the total waste of a great company by a gigantic multi-national who really had no clue as to the real assets of DPC that they had just acquired. We understand there are brilliant minds at Siemens trying to make this work, but it is like trying to get Bill Gates to run the DX division. He could probably do a great job eventually but it might take him several years just to get a fleeting understanding of the great diagnostic puzzle. We at DPC knew how to work the puzzle, much better than you other guys. If this was not true, then you should have had no trouble adapting most of DPC's menu onto Centaur, Vista, etc. especially since we provided you with our batch records!!!! All you had to do was adapt the assays. Just imagine starting from scratch like DPC did, and developing the critical reagents and then working up the functional assays systems robust enough to get to market with no other help from someone else's Batch records!!!!!! This is what DPC did many, many times. This was the "magical" atmosphere the above poster was alluding to and unless you experience this kind of working "magic" in process, you do not believe. I'm sure Siemens didn't bother much with concerning themselves with such fairytale "nonsense", but somehow I think they are wondering out loud about it now. How else can they explain the complete lack of "magic" in the DX integration? If they had left DPC intact excepting administration/IT/sales/marketing etc., the DPC magic would have given the whole DX experience for them a far better ending. My bet is that once the original DPC R&D staff got familiar w/ the Centaur they could have loaded up the DPC menu in short order. Why am I so confident of this? I was there to witness how rapidly all the RIA/IRMA assays were loaded up on Immulite during the period right after the system was purchased. The amount of work done in that period of time would have required the other DX divisions much, much more time to accomplish and I'd bet it would have had them quit on many of the truly difficult assays. You say that there is no proof of DPC's "magic"?; this is the proof!! How long do you think it would have taken Bayer to load up their complete menu onto Immulite had they purchased the system instead of DPC? Answer is, they would still be working "hard" converting many of the assays over to Immulite; you guys just would not be able to keep pace w/ the DPC crowd. The proof is that DPC was converting 20-40 assays per year from RIA/IRMA to Immulite. And Immulite was a completely different format with about the only parallel being the use of antibodies! I myself miss that kind of "magic" in the work atmosphere. The sense of accomplishment was an incredible rush. In spite of all the pressure, in-fighting, professional jealousy, oddball personalities/etc., we got stuff done that we knew very few groups our size would be able to accomplish. It is more rewarding than bigger salaries, titles, power, etc. It was the endorphins of accomplishment while going against all odds that makes you feel great; the kind of rush professional athletes' must feel. Further, no matter what transpires for us DPC'ers, we will always have the pride of once being a part of something very special, and we don't need you other guys to understand because we know you don't believe in the "magic"...... like the poster above has experienced in completely different endeavor.

Not at all (and it's suicide, if that matters to you). I am just sick of hearing many of the DPC crowd bragging about how good they are when they never completed their job of transferring from R&D to manufacture. It would be best for all involve that the transfer get done properly now and let the LA people move on with their lives. Sticking around in LA now with basically nothing to do and not knowing when the axe will fall can't be fun. Bragging here seems to be the only fun left and that isn't saying much. I'm sure most in LA want the uncertainty to end and it can't until the job of transfer is done.

How you come up with my wanting LA people to kill themselves is totally beyond me (I don't follow your logic trail at all). My only complaint against LA is that they falsely believe they are unique or super special and, I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. The only support that comes for that concept is from the LA people themselves and self-praise is fairly meaningless.

What I do want is for those who will inevitably be laid off to have a date certain for that to happen, a clear milestone that will allow it to happen and for them to move on with their lives and find success after DPC. DPC, even in its best days, was never the only place to be happy and never the only place where one could use their talents and innovation. My 'outside' opinion is that closure (not meaning closing the plant) is the best thing that can happen to those remaining in LA and I hope you all can move on and find both happiness and a new position that will suit your need for praise or self-gratification.

"Is it possible that Siemens management is finally learning a few things and how to actually make things happen? Only time will tell. Of course, the attitude of the LA people is key too. If they cooperate in deed and spirit, the whole effort should be easily achieved within 6 months. If they resist, who knows how much havoc they can create. Perhaps Siemens will need to create a bonus for cooperation and getting it all done and running smoothly within a certain timeframe. Let's Siemens get on with its business, lets customers have a consistent supply of reagents, probably extends the overall lifetime of Immulite, and lets the LA people have a target date they can use as the beginning of the next phase of their lives."

Sounds like you want the LA people suiside themself.

"Not really, I don't give a shit about this job either. Who knows, maybe I'll work for Roche in a few months -Mr. Farrel" END QUOTE

good one.

"Feel the same way. First cut 90% of staff in TTN, then you can ask the same question: why the 10% can't achieve the same old goal?"

Same here. It's like you're put in German gas chamber twisting and turning for a long time, then people ask you "why do you have an attitude, why don't you cooperate and work hard?"

It sounds like Siemens is finally doing what they should have done in the first place. For complex manufacturing there is no substitute for having manufacturing personnel working side by side with R&D to see how its done and then write in down in manufacturing language. This process is done in virtually all DX companies. Basically, R&D makes a few batches while manufacturing people watch and then the manufacturing people give a try under the watchful eyes of R&D. Not exactly rocket science. Just something that DPC, for whatever reasons, never did. I've seen instances where R&D do resist doing this because they don't want to give up their 'baby' or they don't want to give up their image of being supermen or they simply don't know how to document what they do. Regardless of the cause, this kind of transfer is necessary for most companies. There should be no reason to pay high cost PhDs to make things that lower level chemists and technicians can make in a manufacturing facility. I keep hearing that only DPC experts in LA can make their specialty chemicals and it just doesn't ring true. Other companies have transferred equally complex syntheses from R&D to manufacturing. Those remaining in LA will now be privileged to see how it's done and done properly. Is it possible that Siemens management is finally learning a few things and how to actually make things happen? Only time will tell. Of course, the attitude of the LA people is key too. If they cooperate in deed and spirit, the whole effort should be easily achieved within 6 months. If they resist, who knows how much havoc they can create. Perhaps Siemens will need to create a bonus for cooperation and getting it all done and running smoothly within a certain timeframe. Let's Siemens get on with its business, lets customers have a consistent supply of reagents, probably extends the overall lifetime of Immulite, and lets the LA people have a target date they can use as the beginning of the next phase of their lives.

"You guys are really full of it. So many people here keep saying everything done in LA can and should be done somewhere else. All of sudden LA becomes valuable to Siemens again and it decided to "spare" us this time?"
END QUOTE

Really?
You're still standing only because Siemens, to date, completed on 1/3 of their US scheduled layoffs. They did east coast first.
Valuable? Don't be silly.
For the time being,Llanberis, is your boss.
Ed Farrel is also sending his people over to LA to see what's being done. I guess you weren't invited to that meeting.
By the time Ed is done with you, you'd wish the layoff hit you already.

If you simply read your self-centered, ego-laden post you will understand why there is so much negative being posted here about DPC. You simply can't see that every time you tell us how great you are and talk about your 'magic', you insult the many excellent people who worked at companies like Bayer and Dade. None of the three companies were perfect and each was making money in a very difficult business. Both Bayer and Dade had difficult-to-produce 'specialty reagents' and they managed to convert there manufacture to a process that could be done by a routine manufacturing facility (just think about things like manufacturing magnetic particles or the complex enzyme conjugates required for the EMIT technology. The only thing 'special' about DPC is their extraordinary arrogance and elitism. That, your attitude, is what is generating all of the hostility. It is not jealousy and it is not envy; it is your implicit put-down of your Siemens colleagues at other sites. Your paranoia forbids you to accept reality. You were told at this site on mulitple occasions that Immulite was to be a cash cow and you refused to accept that reality. You ignored all factual evidence that supported the cash-cow theory: the cancellation of future Immulite development, the early effots to put a few Immulite methods on Centaur, etc. And how did you react to that early news? You attacked the ex-Bayer people. You simply could not accept the fact that LA's fate was decided in Germany, not Tarrytown. You could not accept the reality that there was no way that Siemens planned to continue with both Immulite and Centaur and the decision to keep Centaur rather than Immulite was all part of the three-company strategy. If you look back, you will that there was alot of initial sympathy for your fate. However, when you started to act like a bunch of spoiled children, whatever support you had at this site rapidly turned to annoyance and eventually to hostility. Yes, you are victims of a business decision, but no, you are not nearly as special or unique as you claim to be. The fact is that if you were only half as good as you think you are, you would all be being chased by the head hunters. Even in a bad economy, the cream rises to the top and good companies are always on the lookout for supplement their talent when opportunity knocks. Quite frankly, it appears that the only people who think you are magic are yourselves, and very few people get impressed by someone whose sole claim to fame is self-praise.

Still sorry you folks got screwed by a Siemens decision and sorrier, yet, that you have turned your bad luck into hostility towards the people at Bayer and Dade that had nothing to do with your ultimate fate. I am sorry that you can't get over yourselves and that you refuse to accept the realities of business decisions. I am sorry that the realities of your value and goodness and magic have become a legend in your own minds. As someone who has watched this whole Siemens mis-adventure into the world of DX from the outside, I have seen or heard nothing that factually supports your superiority and fully understand the resentment you have generated by your whining and complaining and overblown egos. I know you will take this post as being hostile; it is simply meant as an objective view from a non-involved person with many years of experience in the diagnostics business.

"Honestly LA was on the chopping block on Friday the 20th, the fact they spared you is because they will use you, suck you dry, right till the end>>>>> and then they will spit u out, and make it hard for you to go any where.... I thought GE was bad???? Wow Siemens is following suit......." END QUOTE

You guys are really full of it. So many people here keep saying everything done in LA can and should be done somewhere else. All of sudden LA becomes valuable to Siemens again and it decided to "spare" us this time?

By the way, "use you, suck you dry, spit u out" happens everyday in corporate world. Stop being such a drama queen.

They need to fire Loescher and Reitherman now! Also, any bigwigs get the pink slip? I guess not. Sure, let the worker bees go........ Too many chiefs. Makes sense to me.

I never worked for DPC, and don't even work in the DX field. However, I've worked for a small company that had that "magic" - just like DPC. We lost it when we grew too fast and not wisely - made bad hires that didn't fit the culture. Eventually we were bought by a larger company, which only made things worse, but they were not the root cause of our demise.

It was a fantastic experience working in a "magic" company - but it's a double-edged sword. You're lucky to get this once in your life - and if you do, no other work environment will ever live up to it. So what are your chances that you'll ever find that again, and ever be truly happy in your job again?

So I "believe" what the previous poster is talking about.

I had not read these Siemens posts for many months now, but I am amazed at the angry comments from the LA haters in these recent entries. Why so much hostility? I totally understand the LA groups anger, since they were the ones cut to ribbons by Siemens corporate types that had no clue. But why such vitriol from the others? I'll give you the simple and obvious answer; envy and the realization that now everyone can see that the DPC "magic" was indeed very real. Once again for the upteenth time, DPC was the smallest company and had the smallest R&D group by a huge margin. And yet the productivity of that incredibly successful group gave the company the widest menu, and the most technically difficult array of assays in the entire industry. These are unarguable facts and were made widely known only after the many posts on these threads. Of course the insiders in the industry knew this, but the Bayer/ Dade types I'm sure, felt they were surely stronger and better than this rag tag group. But these posts have salted many open wounds and the subsequent screaming and crying has been gratifying to the admittedly jaded ego's of the DPC crowd. We always knew we were better because we were successful in many areas where many larger firms failed, all while producing most of the critical reagents in house. You see folks, if you can make the critical reagents that others who specialize in this arena cannot, then you have a huge leg up on the competition and you never have to worry about supply issues. The fact that these talents haven't traveled well is because the talent didn't go with the sale--they were jettisoned by Siemens on a large scale with a great deal of arrogance..........somehow I get the feeling Siemens somewhat came to grips with these facts, because LA has hung around longer that it makes sense. But keeping what is essentially 3rd and 4th string players is indeed futile desperation by Siemens because the horse left the barn a long time ago. Still, what is left of the DPC "magic" is still being given far more respect than we imagined they would eventually give us! The pitiful roster that is left must be viewed far more favorably than what Siemens is seeing in the other divisions. Sorry but the truth always stings or a long time doesn't it?. And yes, there really was a bit of "magic" in the old DPC, even as this silly metaphor gets the usual eye roll from the Dade/Bayer guys. You just had to be there to beleive.

"Water boarding won't work. If a person knows something, but doesn't have the capability to share it because of inferior communication skills, no amount of pressure (positive or negative) will pull it out of him. What makes LA 'essential' is their inability to share their skills and knowledge. So make them a deal .. they get a bonus if, and only if, they can commit their knowledge to a documented set of procedures that can be followed by any manufacturing site that is reasonably skilled in the 'art' of making diagnostic reagents. And this must be accomplished within a reasonable time frame. No more delays and no more excuses. This idea that only a few geniuses in LA can make Immulite reagents is pure nonsense and Siemens has to put an end to the LA myth. Siemens can no longer afford to be held hostage by the tyranny of a few arrogant chemists in LA."

You'd stand up and lead Siemens to get "the LA myth".

"Honestly LA was on the chopping block on Friday the 20th, the fact they spared you is because they will use you, suck you dry, right till the end>>>>> and then they will spit u out, and make it hard for you to go any where.... I thought GE was bad???? Wow Siemens is following suit......."

You're very smart and honest person.

Feel the same way. First cut 90% of staff in TTN, then you can ask the same question: why the 10% can't achieve the same old goal?

It's amazing that people are actually blaming the failed transfer of manufacturing to Llamberis on the personnel in LA. Anybody who knows anything about the transfer knows that the main reasons for the difficulty included the overly optimistic transfer schedule, and a lack of skilled labor in a tiny city in Wales. Both of which LA had no control of. I know there are a lot of LA haters out there, but holding LA responsible for the transfer is like holding the Titanic passengers responsible for the lack of lifeboats. LA manufacturing had clear and complete batch records at the time of transfer and to suggest that lack of documentation impacted the transfer is laughable. LA didn't ask to be assimilated, so reduce the rhetoric and give them a break!