Penn Purchasing Logo Image with Penn Shield
New Collaborative Relationship for Laboratory Supplies and Equipment - Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Coming Soon:

Procurement Services is pleased to announce a new contract for ordering lab supplies, which resulted from a comprehensive, competitive bid process that included collaboration from Penn’s research community.  This new collaboration brings together Fisher Scientific and EMSCO Scientific to form a new EMSCO-Fisher supply chain model serving Penn.  The University will benefit from having a West Philadelphia-based, minority-owned lab supplies distributor to service the account.  This aligns Penn with a major-market force to provide best-in-class, local service while reducing overall cost.

Under the new agreement, Penn will immediately enjoy a host of benefits, including but not limited to: improved overall pricing, strengthened local service and support staff, and an expanded diversity purchasing position.  In the longer term, Penn will enjoy additional services such as emergency warehousing and local access to cold storage functions.

For those who have experienced working with EMSCO in recent years, you may have noticed the positive impact the new leadership team has brought to the company.  This new team and its work with Fisher Scientific were critical to making such an innovative model viable at Penn.

All parties are enabling and testing systems to ensure a smooth transition to the new purchasing model in the coming weeks.  It is expected that there will be minimal impact to the order-to-fulfillment process.  Details about the changes you can expect to see to the process of ordering, fulfillment, and ongoing service and support will be provided upon launch, and will be posted to Penn Procurement Services website.

Should you have any questions, please contact David Staskin, dstaskin@upenn.edu, 215-898-2482.

 

Thank you,

Procurement Services