Genalysis Laboratory Services of Maddington Western Australia has won the 2006 Department of Industry and Resources Services Export Award. In winning the WA award, Genalysis will go forward to the National Export awards to be presented in Melbourne on 30th November 2006.

From the press release:

Genalysis Laboratory Services Pty Ltd was founded in 1975 by directors Terry and Tena Wheeler to offer a personalised analytical service to the mineral exploration industry.

Genalysis is one of the largest, privately owned, independent laboratory in Australia, and has its headquarters in the suburb of Maddington WA. All analytical work is carried out in one large centralised laboratory facility. The company has grown from 3 people with turnover of $55,000 in 1975 to 300 people and more than $25m in 2006/07.

Genalysis has sample preparation operations in Maddington, Kalgoorlie, Adelaide and Johannesburg which have both high and low level dedicated facilities. The pulps from all sites are expedited to Maddington for analysis.

The Maddington Head Office and Laboratory has an extensive range of facilities; including digestion laboratories, instrumentation including ICP-OES and ICP-MS, XRF and atomic absorption spectrometry.

 A recent innovation in 2005/06 is the installation of a fully robotic sample preparation cell in Maddington and to be installed prior in Christmas 2006, a fully automated XRF laboratory.

Genalysis is a NATA accredited laboratory to ISO17025.

Genalysis is taking full advantage of the increasing commodity prices, and intends to continue its spending on substantial capital equipment to meet excessive demand.

Genalysis is pleased to announce Ann Evers as our new Chief Chemist.
Ann holds a first class Honours degree in Chemistry from Birmingham University. Prior to joining Genalysis in 1988 she spent 7 years at Mintek (South Africa) working in mineral processing chemistry (particularly Platinum Group Metals) and 4 years at the University of Witwatersrand developing selective complexing agents for Base Metals.

She has wide experience in analysis of soils and waters, and in classical analytical techniques applied to mineral samples. Her R & D experience is being applied to the development and refinement of new geochemical and environmental methods. Ann is a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.

At Genalysis, Ann has worked in ICP, Multi-Process and from 1989 was involved in the development of the Environmental and Special Services sections.

Ann is a NATA signatory and is the Genalysis NATA coordinator, recently organising the accreditation of the laboratory to ISO/IEC 17025.

As Chief Chemist Ann will mainly be responsible for method development and validation, technical advice to management and QA/QC.

Genalysis is pleased to announce its state of the art, fully automated sample preparation system, from the IMP Group is up and running.This multi function system incorporates new bar code technology and has the capacity to:

• Handle bulk samples up to 10kg with crushing capacity to -2mm with automatic splitting and packaging.
• Single Stage Mix and Grind capacity 300g to 1.2kg for fine grinding.
• Automatic cleaning cycle including abrasive barren wash between samples (eliminating cross contamination).
• Automatic recording of all functions including input and output sample weights.
• High sample throughput will improve turnaround.

As the entire process is fully automated from sample entry the system will eliminate the need for operators to be exposed to dust, noise and heat. By utilising inbuilt quality control systems, human error will be a thing of the past.

This new system will ensure the highest possible levels of quality at very affordable rates.

Genalysis trebles Fire Assay capacity for gold and platinum group metal analysis.

Genalysis will commission a brand new fire assay facility in March this year which will incorporate all new design features to improve efficiencies and reduce turnaround. These include new furnace design and dedicated flow lines to improve systems of handling and analysis by lead and nickel sulfide collection fire assay.

This new facility will also lead to improved working conditions for staff with new dust and lead collectors, air-conditioning and change rooms.

The following are extracts from Australia’s Paydirt, September 2005.

It is one of those home-grown success stories that does not involve great deal-doing, high-flyers, hype or smoke and mirrors.

The story continues to tell a little of the history of Genalysis, about the building of the Kalgoorlie facility, the purchase of Adelaide and later Johannesburg.
Following on from there, it talks about the new robotic system:

We believe that this system will alleviate some of the labour-intensive areas within Genalysis, virtually eliminating sample cross contamination and help our systems become more streamlined, Terry said.
Overall, Genalysis is spending between $3-4 million on expansions and improvements, including a new $750,000 fire assay facility to increase capacity, automated XRF instrumentation to service the iron ore industry and additional ICP instrumentation.

Click here for the pdf file with the full article, reproduced with the permission of Barry Avery of Louthean Publishing (now Paydirt Media).