Waters Announces new Capabilities for Connections® INSIGHT™

Waters Corporation has announced new capabilities for Connections® INSIGHT™. Since August 2004, Waters® Connections INSIGHT™ has shipped as a value-added service with the company’s ACQUITY UPLC™ and nanoACQUITY UPLC™ systems.

Connections INSIGHT currently provides users with several capabilities: real-time system monitoring and alert notification, predictive maintenance technology, and the ability to contact Waters directly from their ACQUITY UPLC systems with the click of a mouse. 

Waters continues to enhance its worldwide services capabilities by introducing two innovations: Performance Status Reports and Real-Time Remote Troubleshooting for Real-Time Problem Resolution.

Customers can now receive emails automatically on a monthly basis notifying them about the performance of their UPLC systems.

These reports include performance and usage information for the following components: instrument counters, auto sampler injections, lamp hours, volume of solvent delivered, lamp ignition, column usage (i.e. injections per column) and estimated performance maintenance visit to avoid system downtime.

This capability is designed to ensure that users can effectively monitor the critical parameters of their systems so that they can effectively plan for on-going maintenance. This service will be demonstrated in the Waters booth, #1833, at Pittcon 2006.

Based on customer permission, ACQUITY UPLC users can grant Waters support engineers the ability to login and remotely diagnose system performance and operational issues in real-time. 

When permitted, Waters’ service personnel will perform the required diagnostics in compliance with the users’ security guidelines, and IT policies and procedures, thus ensuring the safety of their data.

This service allows for the remote resolution of system problems without the need of an on-site engineer.

According to Peter Boler, Director of Marketing, Waters Global Services, "Today’s announcement of new Connections INSIGHT capabilities augments our industry-leading services portfolio. Since the fall of 2004, customers with active Connections INSIGHT accounts have realized significant productivity gains."

"Our internal reporting shows that 25% of the system alerts received by our Support team are resolved without the need to dispatch a service engineer."

"In those situations calling for an on-site visit from a field engineer, our customers are back on-line faster because Connections INSIGHT transmits performance information in advance for a more accurate diagnosis."

"The end result is increased system uptime, better cost control and higher levels of productivity," he said.

Waters Connections INSIGHT operates within a company’s existing security infrastructure and is fully compliant with existing firewalls, proxy servers and security policies.

By making use of the existing network infrastructure, there is no need to make any changes to established procedures to support remote monitoring and diagnostics.

Connections INSIGHT-enabled systems support DHCP, meaning fixed IP addresses are not required.

The Connections INSIGHT Service Agent communicates with the Waters’ Tech Support Center via transmissions that require password authentication to validate the identity of devices exchanging information with the enterprise. 

All communications are encrypted using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol and are initiated from behind the firewall of the customer’s site.

Connections INSIGHT does not provide visibility into a customer’s business-sensitive data. Performance information is stored in a database accessible only by certified Waters’ support engineers with special authorizations and permissions.

Waters Connections INSIGHT has been available on ACQUITY UPLC and nanoACQUITY UPLC systems since the fall of 2004.

These capabilities will be available by the end of June, 2006, and will occur automatically for existing users.