Any news about the summer layoff rumor going around? Apparently it's spreading at multiple sites on east and west coasts.

Are the helpdesk's replies still coming from Ms. Kalashnikova in Belarus?

I was adding my comments to the post about SAP issues. Help Desk and SAP issues sometimes go hand in hand.

Any additional news regarding layoffs this summer?

so you wrote so long just to complain about computers? next time ask for Sennheiser, good German engineering never fails.

First order of business, in my opinion, is to bring back the "Helpless Desk" known officially as the Help Desk to the US. They want to know why the computers aren't running, it is due some to these low life, uninformed, untrained people that are the front line people that we have to talk to every time we call. They don't call you back and even when you escalate the ticket they end up closing the ticket when it is still open. Getting worse by the minute.

And another rant is why doesn't a company of this magnitude be able to afford new computers to those computers that the warranties are way expired and not running right, very slow. In fact, most of the times the computer/systems are very slow.

Instead of always the answer being laying people off, how about a re look that their inefficient technology that they gives us to work with and the nitwits at the help desk. Maybe it would be cheaper bringing it back to the US and training people on how to speak English when you call and oh yes, it would help if you would understand them. I mean this is a company after all. I get this type of no customer service as a consumer and I certainly have been dismayed and confused and may I say disappointed in Siemens that this situation has not gotten better.

Thanks for advice. Refer list-eruption-2.blogspot.com

I am trying to figure out how these two things relate. It is hard to imagine laying off SAP. And whether they lay off people or not, the SAP problems will need to be fixed. This won't be the first time that Tarrytown has been exposed to the basic problems with SAP. Bayer went through a similar nightmare. SAP works very well when it fits in with a company. But when it needs to be modified, it tends to be inflexible and difficult to customize. Good luck to any and all who have to deal with SAP. You will either love it or hate it.

Rumors are once again flying about layoffs this summer.
The SAP program has caused major problems at sites on east coast. People can't work until a workorder comes in. For many the downtime is adding up more than actual worktime...and Siemens accountants have noticed.
Will be interesting to see if this layoff rumor has any meat on the bone.

There are still LA, Sacramento and Berkeley,

Any rumors on west coast sites consolidation?
END QUOTE

What's left there to consolidate?

"Is this at Llanberis?"

No, I was talking about the main DX organisation at Disney World - Frimley head office.

Any rumors on west coast sites consolidation?

The original Zs put together a remarkable organization for its time. They had a feel for the business and for customer needs. By the time they left the world was changing though. For DPC, MZ had neither the vision nor inclination to run a diagnostics company. The market was changing as a combination of integrated systems, laboratory automation systems that linked various analyzers, and one stop shopping for clinical chemistry and immunochemistry took over. The differences among many immunochemical tests was disappering taking away part of DPC's competitive advantage. Without the original Zs and their flare for the business, DPC was probably going to decline no matter what. MZ was at least smart enough to see all of this and got out with the best deal he could get for himself. For Siemens it was a worthwhile deal for its cash cow value, its entry into smaller markets in less developed countries, and possibly, specifically China.

What happened to DPC was the result of losing irreplaceable leadership, changing market dynamics, and a stratgeic plan that didn not include DPC in its long term future, but rather a means to an end. Like it or not, this is the way things work in todays business world.

How many people left in LA?
When I worked there in the 90's they had close to 1000 people and a full Sales Force. It was DPC then. It was called the Diagnostic Boot Camp cause if you trained and worked there you could work anywhere. The pay sucked but the people and training were great.

Sounds like Siemens is just the opposite.
Past few years I've been working at Roche. Also a good place. I've noticed a lot of ex-Siemens DX people here now.
My DPC training has made working everywhere else a breeze for me.
Boy, those days are long gone.
Dr.Z knew what he was doing.

Is this at Llanberis?
We hear the facility is riddled with manufacturing problems with well over 100 backordered reagents.
At Tarrytown we have a small group designated just for trying to salvage kits before taking them off the Immulite menu.
We've lost a bunch already.
East Coast sites already rumored for layoffs sometime this summer.
I thought it was just another hoax till I read Loescher's letter a few days ago.

There is a steady flow of DX UK staff bailing out, every week the leaving cards are going round, the call for voluntary redundancy last year had too many volunteers, many, many others are looking around to see what is around. No rumour, fact.

At least consult with those guys. If nothing else, they should help you rinse away any vestigial carryover.

Need to pick a color? I wonder how many people remember IK, the short-lived head of the clinical chemistry and immuno business group (an Abbott refugee) who would always remind us that, as the person in charge, she got to pick the colors. Ahhhh, the good old days when Sr. VPs weren't afraid to make the tough decisions.

Trinidad needs passing to the domestic appliance division to design, Siemens make bl@@dy good washing machines...

DX CAI R&D is hugely challenged. I am convinced that Trinidad will be a disaster.

Siemens is painfully laborious, even a simple job like Trinidad is vastly slow, it takes them years to assemble task forces and groups to just pick a picture for reception. Yes the Centaur Trinidad should have been out by now but I doubt they have even agreed on a color yet!

People thought IMS was a joke after the Chem 1 experience, too. And look how that turned out. The real joke is that the possibility could only be credible in Tarrytown. There is something very arrogant and self-destructive about Tarrytown culture that has existed and grown ever since the Whiteheads sold the company. It started under Revlon and has grown ever since under each of the many owners.

It is a joke idiot.

Back? Where? How can something that never was, be back?

How in the world could it have come back. The only explanation is that some psychotically obsessive zealot finally found the missing microliter after all of these years. How ironic. I knew where it was all the time, but no one ever bothered to ask me.

30 years after Chem 1 and you want us to believe that someone would still put money into capsule chemistry? Bayer alone spent close to a billion dollars on it and Siemens wound up covering the cost in the acqusition. You really think they want more? Maybe they can bring Hans L out of retirement to run it, eh?

you are all wrong, IMS is back

If Trinidad is simply a re-skinned Centaur with a few new bells and whistles, then no one will care. If that is Siemens' answer to the perception that all of their systems (from Dimension and Advia chemistry systems, to Vista and Centaur) are all old, tired technology, then Siemens will be in for a rude shock. Do they really believe that customers can't distinguish between a truly new system and a cosmetic refurb? Didn't they learn their lesson from their last Centaur upgrade which turned out to be more of a downgrade? Do they think that substituting AG for DS will make a difference? Neither DS nor AG has any history when it comes to putting a successful system on the market; the only real difference is that one was a mean, nasty SOB and the other is just totally incompetent.

We've been hearing about Trinidad for several years and if it's only new skins and a few new features, then something is already wrong; such a system should be on the market by now. With the possible exception of Siemens secret long term strategy, Siemens continues to prove to the world that they know nothing about diagnostics or how to manage it. So either Trinidad is a lot more than you suggest (e.g., a truly new system that will take another 3-6 years to launch), or it's just much ado about nothing and is probably not worth the effort that Siemens is putting into it.

Siemens: We know how to make the competition look good !!

Trinidad won't take 6 years!! how long do think it takes to reskin a Centaur? because thats all we have coming...

I am pretty sure that if you shaved Hitler's moustache off people would still have recognised him. Likewise replacing some injection moulded panels on a Centaur won't fool them for long, its still the same largely unreliable, badly designed, over complex elephant its always been.

If it makes it out I don't think Trinidad will hit the market for a minimum of 6years.
By that time several sites will be long gone as well as at least one platform (your choice).
Llanberis backorders are just as bad now as several years ago.
Here at Tarrytown things aren't much better.

Where Siemens DX expected to be six year into the game is no way near where they current are.
Did you read Loescher's letter yesterday. What CEO starts a letter with a "light and shadow" comment. The 3000 new employees in train/tram division will offset any layoffs elsewhere.
Get the hint.

Trinidad is at the breadboard stage? That should make it around 3-4 years from launch. Please, don't go on and on about aggressive schedules or improved processes at Siemens that let them get things done faster. We have all seen the results of Siemens 'excellent' processes, and know what the FDA thinks of them.

Doing Trinidad at multiple sites will only slow things down and create its own set of problems. Of course, if AG has a key role in Trinidad, you can change the launch schedule to 5-6 years, if at all. And you can just bet that the system will launch prematurely with many problems that still need to be addressed in the field prior to Trinidad becoming a viable product. All one needs to do is look at recent releases from Delaware and Tarrytown to understand the quality the work at these sites.

If you think things have changed, and that this time everything will work during development, then you should be able to explain why that is. A short, maybe 500 word essay, would be appropriate here including information about new and better people and processes, giving several examples of each internal improvement to justify your optimism.

I leave it to you to decide if I am a cynic or just a person with a ton of experience in developing many successful diagnostics products, generally on time and within budget. I know what it takes to do things right and I know that most of Siemens will take short cuts, relax specifications, delete or postpone launch features in a vain attempt to meet a schedule. Remember that, despite the spin, Siemens is all about schedule, meeting dates, etc. The quality and true customer needs are secondary. Just ask any early evaluator of recent introductions such as Advia IMS, Gen-y-mess, or even Vista.

Not as impressive as you try to make it sound. So two years ago, things were so bad, Siemens had to lay people off and slow down production. Now things are picking up which probably means that Siemens is back to where they had hoped to be two years ago. That is quite different that where they had expected to be today when they made projections two years ago. And I would assume that part of the increased sales include the fire sales they had in China last year to meet projections.

The real questions are:

How many years has it been since the first launch of Vista?

What were market projections for number of systems in the field at the time of launch?

How many systems are actually operating in the field as primary analysers and are operating more or less full time.

What is the current frequency of service intervention (roughly MTBF)?

How many of the Vistas in the field simply replaced prior Dade systems (Dimension?). Cannabalising one's own business is not a recipe for growth.

Bottom line: What is Siemens market share with Vista (and, Dimension for that matter?

I'm wondering if VISTA's are being placed as a larger purchase of imaging equipment bundle. The marketing hype about the all-in-one and does everything "VISTA" may have swayed some customers, but I think the overall stratgey is to bundle their products cheaply with the higher margin imaging products.

Trinidad is NOT a rumor. Operating breadboards exist with well-defined development paths. R&D is heavily involved with a major headcount commitment by the DE, TTN & FLDS sites, especially Delaware. BTW, the much-maligned Dimension Vista is selling at twice the rate that was projected two years ago when production was slowed (major layoffs occurred at Brookfield in January, 2012). BFD had to hire back and/or train new people to keep up with customer demand.

biofind...man is this place laughable. all mis-information. im starting to wonder if its just reps from other companies bad mouthing each other. almost nothing is accurate here.

Any progress with making the FDA happy? DX, you do realize that you're putting pressure on the rest of Siemens Healthcare, don't you? Thanks a lot!

LOL - I said rapid, my apologies :-)

Heard of a project named Allegro mentioned a few times, some kind of small modular kit that being rapidly developed

Salessolution has a large range of products and offers theleading brands
(Absolute software, Ruckus wireless WiFi)that provides endpointsecurity
and management solutions to reduce theft and IT costs.

Roche would only be interested so they would know what not to do.

Trinidad is just another Centaur rehash. Like a new VW Golf, a new dashboard, new grille, same old chassis and engine generation after generation. Truth is a Golf still doesn't handle that well and neither will a re-skinned Centaur be reliable.

All those saying no development work being done don't understand the way Siemens work. Siemens thinks most design is done with artists impressions and clip-art on Powerpoint. This is where the thrust of the development will take place for 5 years. Then they will give up and buy in someone else's crap and stick a Siemens label on it. (Almost certainly giving the contract to some German engineering sub contractor instead of a Japanese one, so sadly it will be over complicated and unreliable as usual)

I have seen these Powerpoints! but only ever allowed on an encrypted USB stick. We can't show Roche, they won't copy us but they would laugh!!!

The problems with Immulite reagents and the latest post about actual withdrawal of certain tests is a leading indicator that the plug will be fully pulled on Immulite much sooner than Siemens had originally planned. The cash cow is growing older and weaker much faster than anticipated and much of this is due to the obstruction from LA. The only good news for Siemens is the situation with Immulite may finally force them into closing LA which has been bleeding Siemens for several years now.

Putting facelifts on products like Vista and Centaur sounds like throwing good money after bad. As I understand things, the last version of the Centaur upgrade was cancelled at the last minute when Siemens realized what a DS-led project produces. Adding a few more tests to Centaur here and there is not a full time activity for a large diagnostics manufacturer and, generally does not require much in the way of either engineers or software personnel. As far as Vista is concerned, any work on that system should be classified as post-launch fixes and, at this point in Vista's history, one can only wonder if the badly damaged patient can be saved at all.

I would certainly agree with my fellow (and fellow-ella) posters that any new system is probably years away since I've been saying the same thing for quite a while now. My guess is that any new system is a minimum of 3 years from real launch (meaning the product is generally available to customers in contrast to a controlled, limited rollout). Three years is an optimistic estimate and assumes that the new system is made up of basically well characterized components (modules?) with well characterized tests on them and that the major development portion of the new system involves 'modularization' and development of a unified sample and reagent handling module/component.

I would also contend that if other posters are correct and that Siemens is NOT developing a new system, then their venture into diagnostics is completely doomed and they will take a total loss on their acquisitions since they have very little of value to sell off today. The only real unknown in the equation is their China gambit which is probably alot more complex than most people here realize.

Most of R&D is working on assay kits for Centaur and Immulite which they can no longer get to work anymore. Reagent problems are increasing leading to major backorder problems. Ironically, the biggest solution they have so far is to discontinue the kits altogether.
The amount of discontinued kits over the past 2 years is staggering.
Other parts of R&D are working on Centaur, Vista and Immulite facelifts.
But module is the way to go. Roche already has new instruments out there. Siemens DX is about 5 years too late.

"but I can't figure out why Siemens still has an R&D group if they are not working on anything significant."

It's as simple as they don't have a clue how to run a diagnostics company. From R&D to sales to management. This is one company I'm glad I no longer work for.

Not to argue the point too much, but then what in the world is Siemens doing with its remaining R&D crew? And, as crazy as this might sound, there may be people working on Trinidad that don't even know it. For the sake of speculation, Trinidad could be some form of integrated Dimension-Centaur in modular form. Such a system could have a common sample and reagent handling system plus any number of integrated modules performing either routine chemistry or immunochemistry tests. Nephelometric capability might be integrated within the chemistry module or as a third module option. These modules could be developed at a single site like Flanders and evaluated for chemistry performance in Delaware or Tarrytown without the evaluators actually realizing they were testing parts of an entire system. I know this all sounds crazy, but I can't figure out why Siemens still has an R&D group if they are not working on anything significant.

I don't know of any R&D working on a new platform especially at multiple sites. Definitely not in US.
But for sake of arguing lets say they are working on some Trinidad platform. You're talking of at least 4-5 years before the public would have access to it. To be honest I don't think DX has that long. None of the numbers pan out.
Besides, why keep it a secret anyway. Who cares if the competition knows you're working on something new. All of them are. Healthcare is concentrating on the IMAGING side of the business now.
China and Agenda 2013 at best buys DX 1-2 years of small margin gains. I seriously doubt MR will last that long. Did you see his last vid? Poor guy lost 20pounds and looks like a ghost.

I agree that if there is a real Trinidad, it is a very well guarded secret, in particular, since rumour has it that this new system is being developed at multiple sites. I agree that some leaks would have occurred by now, but who knows for sure. One clue that such a project exists is that there have not been massive R&D layoffs in Delaware or New York and that suggests that they are working on something. The continued presence of Flanders suggests some new system and they do much more than simply supportinga dwindling population of Immulite systems. But even assuming that there is some kind of real project, I think we can safely assume it has yet to reach the beta site testing phase since that level of testing follows an FDA filing for the basic sysem and some assays. I'm not sure of all the details, but at one time, an FDA filing could be kept secret if there had been no public advertising of the product by the manufacturer. I have no idea if that is still operational policy. I also ask myself what possible future Siemens could have in mind without a new system. And finally, it is hard to see how Siemens could sell any part of diagnostics right now with their current old, tired systems.

So right now, my best guess is that Siemens has found at least one way to be successful and that is that they are keeping virtually any evidence of whatever Trinidad is, at a bare minimum. R&D must be working on something, wouldn't you think?

New System?
Everyone mentions it but no one has seen it. Only thing
floating around is the name Trinidad.
None of the US sites are working on it.
Third party sites? Doubtful.
Would there be internal leaks? Of course.
Beta sites? Don't know of any.
I seriously doubt they're developing the Big Grand Daddy of all plantforms. Just not feasible.
Mostly everyone with expertise in this field has already been let go anyway.
Sell it off? You're right, won't happen as a "whole". Sell off the parts is definitely a possibility.
China? Strictly a temporary fix. They are working on their own platforms.
Germany? EURO will continue to plague them. That means, expect Siemens and other German companies to be hit over and over again.
Learning from their mistakes? Siemens? Get real.

It is one thing to make mistakes and Siemens has certainly excelled in this area.

It is quite another thing to recognize mistakes, but even here, I think Siemens has finally realized that their initial plans, hopes and dreams have not been achieved as a result of their own mistakes. This is a good first step in terms of recovery.

HOWEVER: The most important thing is not simply recognizing failed policies and actions, but having the ability to react and take the necessary corrective action. To me, the biggest problem that Siemens faces with respect to diagnostics is that they do not seem to have the industry-specific knowledge as to how to turn things around. This is not simply a case of going to their management 101 book. This is a situation in which expertise in the overall diagnostics business is specifically required. This isn't power grids or choo-choo trains or imaging and before Siemens can fix their diagnostics division's problems they need to understand the business a lot better than they have in the past. Recognition of past failure is not enough; desire to change and fix things is not enough; the missing piece is competance in the diagnostics business and, sadly, it appears that there is no one left from any of their three acquisitions who possesses the knowledge and skills to turn things around.

Siemens may even recognize the truth in what I am posting. But since diagnostics is such a small part of the overall Siemens empire, it is not getting the attention it would if the Siemens bottom line depended heavily on the results from DX. They can't simply sell diagnostics since there are no logical buyers. They can't just shut it down due to legal requirements. All they can do is to hope and pray that their new system is somewhat successful if and when it ever gets launched, and that their long range (not so secret) China strategy will pay off.

No matter how you look at it, Siemens diagnostics is just not a pretty picture right now.

then stop talking about your past and move on. You should pay no attention to DX.
END QUOTE

We should pay no attention to you...and Siemens fools like you.
The company sucks, treats its people like garbage and idiots like you are part of the problem.
This company is tanking faster than any Diagnostic company of its size the past several decades.
When you show no respect to your employee's, have nothing in R&D for future development and sale and rely on a Agenda 2013 Garage Sales to help keep your doors open...time to closeup shop.
How many CEO's does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Ask Siemens DX.
Tarrytown has had its share of bad management and guidance over the past 15 years but nothing, and I mean nothing like these idiots.

Totally agree and Siemens keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. I honestly don't know why Siemens puts up with the financial burden of DX.
What this division brings in profit wise is nothing compared to what they were expecting seven years ago.
Well, they have not lean't their lesson and they are paying the price each and every quarter.

I would add that those who fail to understand the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Have a little respect for perspective and experience. (Remember, it's one of the ten commandments).