L
e amusing irony t burgh Conference hasn't been held in Pittsburgh for more than 20 years is a tip-off to the contradictions and bi zarre characteristics of this enig matic annual tradition. The management staffs of analycical instrument companies hate it, love it, and are frightened by it. Attendees are simultaneously intimi dated by its animalistic, self-perpet.
me, or the fact that in this article
tant elements
sense of not getting the answers th
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interaction of analytical chemistry and chemists as well as technology and technologists. I believe Pittcon is a stage on which is compressed in a few short days the dynamics of our changing technology as applied to the changing needs of analytical chemists and scientists. It is an ongoing play consisting of many acts, even multiple stages. As critics we can examine past acts for glimpses of future performances. Act I-The good old days Initially, the conference was held on the 17th floor (and later the 4th floor) of the Penn-Sheraton Hotel in Pittsburgh in the hallways and any nook or cranny where you could stuff a table, a backdrop, and an instrument. In the 1950s and most of the 1960s, the Pittsburgh Conference be came the single focal point for new product introduction. In those days many scientists, especially spectros copists, pursued the science of those techniques as ends in themselves. That is, the ultimate applications were less important than the understanding of and progress in the measurement itself. Great “infra-redders” such as Bryce Crawford, Jack Decius, and E. Bright Wilson, as well as many others, were professors of physical chemistry o r physics. They interpreted spectra or developed special sampling techniques to apply the technique to a broader range of Samples, but they were not involved in the development of applications used to generate decision-making data. Grants were available from many sources, and the skill in preparing grant applications and maintaining a running stable of graduate students was honed to a fine edge. Success in obtaining grants frequently exceeded success in performing useful science with the money obtained, possibly because more time was spent applying for money than doing science. Mission-oriented research, such as research for NIH, funded the purchase of an enormous number of instruments in the 1960s. Good research was done, even though sometimes it had little to do with the initial purpose of the grant application. With the emphasis on research the Pittsburgh Conference took on great significance, because the introduction of new products allowed scientists to obtain the first models with new capabilities-in principle, anyway-and thus forge a lead in the application of such new products to grant - producing applications. 590 A
Competition among scientists could run at a fever pitch. I remember manning the booth one year when I worked for Cary Instruments. I had logged a lot of booth duty and thought I knew what to expect. We had introduced a new product, a recording spectropolarimeter. I t was eight years in development, a program that only Howard Cary would have stuck with. The product was of great interest to the life science community because of its ability to shed light (so to speak) on protein studies. That conference was the only time in my entire history of booth duty that I actually took a purchase order. It was for $35,000, which was (and still is) a lot of money. The buyers were so anxious to get on the delivery list that, after listening to a description and watching a demonstration for only one half-hour, they went to the phone and obtained the purchase order from their university. They brought me a piece of notebook paper with the P.O. number on it and extracted a verbal promise for a delivery date. Delivery was late, of course, but we consoled them by explaining that everybody else on the list was
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 64, NO. 10, MAY 15,1992
getting their instrument late, too. Through a sort of natural evolution, the Pittsburgh Conference took on a greater and greater focus as the only stage for new product introduction. Managers of instrument companies attended the conference to see what their competitors were doing; to meet their counterparts; and to enjoy, even glory in, the excitement caused by their own product introduct ions. Of course, private industry sent chemists and lab managers to the conference, too. As the 1960s wore on, more and more work in industrial analytical chemistry labs was being done with routine, low-cost versions of UV, IR, and AA spectrometers as well as dozens of other types of ins t r u m e n t s . Their expensive big brothers were also purchased by private industry, but mostly for r e search and in proportion t o their higher cost. During this long first act, the cyclic reciprocity of science feeding techno1ogy, which then re-fed science, continued as if it would never end. IR spectroscopy is an excellent example. The larger spectrometers, such a s the Perkin Elmer Model 21 of the early 1950s and later the IR-4 and the IR-7 from Beckman, all carried price tags in the $15,000 to $20,000 range. They were versatile and stateof-the-art instruments. Researchers in private industry and universities alike yearned for such products but found it difficult t o buy multiple units because the expense had to be weighed against many other needs and wants. Then, in the late 1950s, smaller, lower performance IR spectrometers, such as the famous Infracord from Perkin Elmer and the IR-5 from Beckman, became available at onethird the original price of their larger predecessors. Researchers scorned them, but needy synthetic organic chemists and others bought them in great numbers for molecular struc ture determinations. As a result, more and more chemists became familiar with IR spectroscopy, and their interest stimulated the sale of expensive models as well as low - cost versions. To meet this increasing demand, companies developed even better instruments in all cost categories, perpetuating the cycle. The Pittsburgh Conference played a crucial role as the primary stage on which this drama of reciprocity was played out; scientists were generat ing more and more applications, and instrument competitors were elbowing each other a t the conference, vy-
ing for attention for their new models and improvements. Finally, in the late 1960s, the practice of analytical chemistry in private industry began to change, and Act I came to a close. Ironically, b u t strictly coincidentally, the stage on which Act I1 was to begin also changed. Act Il-Everything changes The Golden Age of the Grant was over in 1968. The money disappeared under the weight of the Vietnam War and the collapse of government support for research. Instrument companies a t the top of the heap during the 1960s changed their focus entirely, disappeared through acquisition, went out of business, or languished a s small technology suppliers in minute niche markets. The Pittsburgh Conference re mained the focal point for product introductions, but the academic community had been dealt a blow from which it would never recover as research grants dried up. With the loss of grant money went the sciencetechnology reciprocity of the 1950s and 1960s. The practice of analytical chemistry changed from inferential to evidential. Instrument companies received little help with the theory and basics of instrument design. What was forthcoming had to be designed from scratch within the instrument companies themselves. The small, technologist - r u n company with products of no discernible application quickly disappeared. The minicomputer existed but was rarely used as it was more of a hindrance than a help. The stage for the annual drama had changed from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. The show was well run, and the city did its best. But the times were not good, and the atmosphere in what seemed like an enormous convention hall a f t e r t h e absurdly small 17th floor of the Penn-Sheraton Hotel was dark. Instrument company representatives wore long faces and stared gloomily down the empty aisles. Conferees told stories of reduced budgets, long delays in purchase approvals, and less travel money for attending the conference. There was a lot of talk among instrument people in those days about pulling out of the conference. It was a big expense, the atmosphere was lousy, and there seemed to be fewer and fewer buyers each year. Struggling with the weather in Cleveland seemed consistent with being disap pointed in the show itself.
However, as we approached the mid- 1970s, attendance improved, the economy improved, and some glitter returned to the eyes of the exhibitors. Almost unnoticed a t first, the show drifted to a greater emphasis on chyomatography: GC, a rapid i n crease in LC, and the emergence of ion chromatography. The old days of dominance by spectroscopic products were over, and they never returned. Few people recognized that Pittcon was becoming a mature, high-profile, professionally run scientific exhibi tion. It was also the stage for another change that few of us saw or recognized: the great underlying shift in our society slowly taking place that would totally change the practice of analytical chemistry and the instrument industry. Act Ill-The awakening Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was the prescient revelation that, slowly at first, awakened our society to the dangers that progress can bring. U1timately, the result of her book was that, by the middle to late 1960s, the departments of agriculture in many universities had changed from small,
underfunded groups to sophisticated, “instrumented,” staffed institutions that began to rival the “pure” departments of physics and chemistry in the extent and fundamental character of their work. Pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, nitrogen oxides, PCBs, prescription and illegal drugs, plastics, metals, petrochemicals, and dozens of other chemicals required sophisticated and automated methods of detection and quantitation. Under the large banner of society’s concern for the environ ment, we saw the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; the regulatory powers of the Food and Drug Administration were stiffened as the U.S. government scrambled to understand the behemoth movement toward the determination of potential contaminants of all types and characters. Still, even in 1975, the markets and buyers were not many. I remember that there was a lot of talk about environmental analysis but no identifiable market. Nonetheless, Pittcon was again the stage for a bellwether change in the analytical business. A practical, mission-oriented set of needs now challenged analytical chemists and instrument makers. No more analytical chemistry for the sake of analytical chemistry, no more physics experiments in the booths to appeal to physicists. Rather, the agricultural chemist, the biochemist, and the contract laboratory manager were all asking the same questions: “Can you run my racks and racks of samples and at the sensitivities and precisions t h a t I require? I don’t want to know how you do it, just whether you can or not . . . and if you can’t, please don’t bore me with information about the advanced physics behind your designs . . . I will visit another company’s booth that might be able to satisfy my needs.” In the early 1970s the petroleum market and its companion industries were strong. A seemingly endless number of chromatographs were pur chased for routine analysis in refineries, intermediates production, and product manufacturing. These applications buoyed the industry and, to some extent, masked the onset of the environmental activity. The oil crisis in the mid-1970s resulted in the oil companies placing greater research emphasis on refining than on exploration and mining. This shift had a significant effect on the instrument business, especially GC, that lasted well into the 1980s.
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Pittcon now showcased new products that emphasized applications rather than advanced design, touted superior features rather than new techniques, and brought a competitive atmosphere back to the exhibition floor. Investment bankers and venture capitalists now roamed the exhibition floor looking for opportunities among the larger and larger numbers of companies with exhibits. The perception was that there was money to be made in the analytical business and room for more than one or two companies to exist profitably in a product line. Act IV-The 1980s: more, more, more The stage changes again, to accommodate more of everything. More analyses, more methods, more regulations, and more technology-all adding up to more demands on the analytical chemist. More products, more competition, more computers from instrument makers-all adding up to a vigorous demand. Unfortunately, underpricing resulted in low profit margins and underinvestment in strategic product development. The new stage for Pittcon was Atlantic City. More, more, more conferees, exhibitors, papers, short courses, and meetings (ASTM, company strategy sessions, personnel searches, etc). Pittcon reached its zenith in that unlikely city. I t was crowded, it seems, almost from the moment the show opened on the first day in 1980. The show stayed in Atlantic City until 1985, when it moved to New Orleans. Played out on the stage of Pittcon during those years were the impact of computers in general (and the PC in particular), a tremendous growth in chromatographyrelated markets, and the emergence of the biotech field as a consumer of analytical products-all of which signaled a major change in the way analytical chemistry would be performed in the future. Pittcon, ever consistent, grew right along with the demand for more products from the growing analytical instrument companies. Soon the Atlantic City Convention Center facilities were creaking, and conference organizers had to consider moving again. Subsequent city-hopping from Atlantic City to New Orleans, Atlanta, New York, and Chicago has not reduced its vitality. The 1991 show in Chicago was an intimidating affair, leaving exhibitors dazed and conferees exhausted. Pittcon ’92 in New Orleans was an 592 A
Itlantic City Convent,,, (entercould do wondeL, to clear your head aftei 11’
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upbeat, encouraging event, well run and well attended. But some might say that it has become intimidating because of its size and that it is too general. Somehow the decade of “more” lacked the strengthening that should h a v e accompanied t h e growth. Analytical laboratories were asked to run more samples. Presumably, increased efficiency or productivity should have been the response to this demand, but all too often the improvement was achieved by hiring more people and buying more equipment (i.e., more rather than better). Twenty years ago chemists and engineers were talking about the need for automated sample preparation prior to determination of analytes. Aside from the ubiquitous chromatography autosampler, only token improvements were made-certainly very few in the 1980s. The major exception might be supercritical fluid extraction, but it is still relatively new, and its destiny belongs to the 1990s. In the early 1980s robotics businesses made use of Pittcon as a marketing tool like no other technology before or since. Robotics is here
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 64, NO. I O , MAY 15, 1992
to stay, but it appears to be in an intermediate holding pattern before it will reach its potential. Aside from a few exceptions, the instrument business did not grow stronger in the 1980s either. Profit margins didn’t improve. The industry lurched along with companies coming and going, growing and retracting, and making few major, long- term contributions of exciting new products that truly improved the productivity of their customers. The future of Pittcon If we accept Pittcon as t h e condensed, focused stage on which we can observe, in microform, the dynamics of our industries, then we should be able to project trends for future conferences and, by inference, for analytical chemistry. Exhibitors a r e selling to each other more than ever. This trend translates into the instrument business dynamic that companies actually selling to end-users are integrators of devices manufactured by others. The integrators then “own” the end-user relationship, because they are the company in direct contact with the end-user. They also determine the price and ultimately will take more money from the table than the suppliers they represent. More and more small companies are reserving 10-ft. booths, and the middle - and large- sized companies are taking larger and larger pieces of Pittcon real estate. Are small companies going to get lost at Pittcon? Do large companies really get marketing benefits commensurate with t h e costs? These questions translate to the overall industry question, “Is growth meaningful if it doesn’t improve products and profitablity?” There has been a steady proliferation of educational seminars before and after the conference in every aspect of analytical chemistry, comput ers, instruments, regulations, and special applications. This develop ment translates into a growing specialization among practicing analyti cal chemists and, subsequently, their need for specialized equipment, methods, laboratories, and knowledge bases (i.e., new journals and other meetings). It raises questions about the gap between analytical chemistry as taught in our educational institutions and as performed in real-life laboratories. Computers and computer terminals are everywhere at Pittcon, but they all play pretty much the same tune. Thus there is a growing propensity to use only a few types of
computers, with a few types of operating systems, with a few types oi high-level software products. The applications differ, of course, but standards will be sought after wherever they can be used and are available. Instrument companies will differentiate their products no longer through proprietary computer hard ware and operating software, but rather through creative user interfaces and applications macros. The ratio of exhibitors to conferees has increased. Because overall attendance has remained roughly constant, this trend could leave us with the absurd situation of no conferees and all exhibitors. This trend, while seemingly negative, may actually mean that the products are tending toward greater sophistication, requiring specialized skills, so that ultimately analysts and technicians would be free to practice microbiology, genetics, synthetic chemistry, forensics, process engineering, waste management, air and water purification, and medicinal chemistry. They would be able to study the meaning of the information generated rather than engage in the production of that information, leaving that task to the sophisticated instruments and specialized operators. The above trends are but a few, of course, and may be far-fetched. At future conferences, we all will have the opportunity to observe the unfolding (or not) of these trends and discover more.
Oxidations in Organic Chemistry his volume is the best and most complete source of information on oxidations of organic compounds. It gives a compre. iensive. up-to-date. and well-organized review if the subject, with emphasis on preparative 3speds and results. An invaluable aide for the practicing chemst. this volume offers a more experimental ather than theoretical scope with emphasis In the preparative aspects and synthetic useirlness of individual reactions. Reactions deuibed in the text were chosen on the basis if simplicity. clarity of description in the prinary literature. availability of oxidents. and
T
ield.
Topics within the volume describe oxidation nd dehydrogenation agents and oxidations of rarious functional groups, with descriptions of he best reagents for a specific reaction. The nformation is expertly organized and s u p iorted by examples. correlation tables, and horough referencing. nil03 Hudlicq
Dave Nelson founded Nelson Analytical in 1980 and seroed as its chairman and CEO until it was sold to Perkin Elmer in 1988. He held several positions at Perkin Elmer, including vice-president of the PE-Nelson Division, before retiring in 1991. He has also held positions at Hewlett-Packard and Cary Instruments. After retiring, he started Nelson Consulting. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Redlands (CA) and his M.S. degree in analytical chemistry from the University of Minnesota. He is currently chairman of the Communications Standards Committee for the Analytical Instruments Association.
\CSMonograph No. 186
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133 pages (1 990) Paperbound ;BN 0-8412-1 781 -5 LC 90-34564 49.95
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