LABELIANS celebrates its 50 th anniversary and looks forward to a new half-century of innovation for laboratories

Article published in La Gazette du Laboratoire of December 2021, author Solenne Denis

 

The CML-ID group – represented since 2017 under the unique brand name LABELIANS – is one of those suppliers that we think we have always known, through its leading offer on the market of consumables, equipment, services and design for biology laboratories. However, we discover much more on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and a visit to its facilities in Nemours (77).

A truly solar team, whose good humor and dynamism are equal to its expertise… Modern facilities where it is good to meet in a stimulating and friendly atmosphere, which harmoniously combines architecture and botanical garden, advanced technologies and environmental awareness… Finally, a visionary and passionate entrepreneur, André QUENOT, founder and exceptional leader, still at the head of the CML-ID group today. A look back at 50 years of history, resilience and commitment, and a projection towards a new half-century of innovation, at the service of laboratories!

“QUENOT, how far will you go? Wherever the customers take me…”

… André QUENOT’s answer to his former employer, shortly after having created CML, sums up nicely the philosophy of the man and his company.
André QUENOT founded CML [Consortium de Matériel pour Laboratoires] in October 1971, in Sevran (93), with the aim of meeting the needs of medical laboratories in terms of consumables and small equipment. In June 1980, CML’s head office moved to Nemours (77), 80 km south of Paris, on the edge of the A6 freeway, and was equipped with a 4,500 m² logistics platform. A strategic choice to optimally serve the multitude of medical analysis laboratories operating in France and a choice of conviction to offer employees and their families a pleasant working and living environment, turned towards nature.

In April 1982, André QUENOT inaugurates the industrial site of Angers, CEB [Centre Européen de Biotechnologies], with a unanimously recognized know-how in the manufacture of medical devices (DM-DIV) by plastic injection and glass Pasteur pipettes. For 30 years, the company, French, independent and family-owned, has been developing at the demanding pace of a market that is evolving, concentrating and becoming more complex, until it was hit by a devastating fire in October 2010. In a few moments, its entire headquarters and warehouses went up in smoke. From one day to the next, not a single product in stock, 40 years of
But the relationship built with its customers, suppliers, partners, and the cohesion and solidarity of its teams and their leader remain and are more important than ever!

In January, a new and modern 6,000 m² logistics center, perfectly equipped to receive hazardous products and to efficiently manage the logistical constraints of public and private laboratories, was built in Pannes (45), about 40 km from Nemours. The regional anchorage of the organization is confirmed and deployed; a new wave of acquisitions and growth takes CML to new heights.

In November 2012, CML bought its colleague Elvetec, and then acquired bioleader®. It took less than five years for the company to literally rise from the ashes and inaugurate its new headquarters in Nemours, on the same site as its previous facilities, with the same ambition: to offer employees a beautiful and natural setting in which to flourish in the service of customers. What about the last two years? “Just like the fire that ravaged the company’s headquarters 11 years ago, the health situation related to the Covid19 pandemic once again plunged us into the unknown and we were in the middle of the cyclone. However, we were able to cope with the situation by being involved as always with our customers, in contact with them and listening to them, in order to find the best solutions to their specific problems and needs. In this way, we have seized a real opportunity in these difficulties, because the more problems there are, the more opportunities there are to solve them”, underlines Mr. QUENOT. “During the last decade and especially in 2020, it is the women and men of LABELIANS who have made the difference with our customers. It is our definition of the word “service” and our response response to the upheavals that laboratories are facing…”

The strength of a French family-owned and independent group, at your side every day

LABELIANS, in 2021, will have a total staff of 125 people, including an exclusive sales force of 27 people and a customer service department of 23 people, located at the company’s headquarters in Nemours since last May. It also has a production unit in Angers and 30,000 m² of logistics capacity in Pannes. With 300 suppliers and its own brand, the company offers more than 12,000 references of consumables, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), furniture and accessories, to meet the technical, safety and traceability needs of its customers. A premium and integrated offer, in full compliance with current standards and with the best value for money, which it delivers to more than 10,000 medical biology laboratories and research laboratories, both private and academic, in France and worldwide. and academic laboratories in France and around the world.

The LABELIANS facilities in Nemours offer nearly 4,000 m² of modern infrastructure, in the heart of a 15,000 m² botanical garden. A Japanese inspiration, the country of origin of Mr. QUENOT’s wife, an artist and illustrator, who participated in the design of the site, as did one of the couple’s sons, Hikoso QUENOT, a designer by profession. The rebirth of the site is also the result of the consultation and involvement of the entire LABELIANS team, united around its President, as symbolically illustrated by the planting of a “sophora japonica” and 50 birch trees in the company’s garden by André QUENOT and 50 of his employees during its 50th anniversary. On two levels, very bright, the building multiplies the spaces of conviviality, creativity and sharing. On the first floor, for example, there is a project incubator open to outside companies, and on the first floor, a showroom and a modular training room, an R&D unit dedicated to finalizing the next LABELIANS innovation, and another dedicated to co-development projects… not forgetting the brand new service and metrology laboratory, inaugurated last September, also on the occasion of the Group’s 50th birthday.

This anniversary was also an opportunity for LABELIANS to communicate two other important announcements: a world first developed by the Group to optimize the quality of sample preparation – the accreditation of the temperature verification method for dynamic phase centrifuges [see our “Practical Pages” article published in September 2021] – and the deployment of the LABELIANS brand platform in all its dimensions, including social and environmental.

LABELIANS, a structured brand platform to boost the difference

“At LABELIANS, we do and then we highlight”, remarks Frédérique CLAVIER- DUBO, LABELIANS Human Resources Director. “It is now time to communicate
the LABELIANS brand!

“LABELIANS is the name of our company and it is also a brand, an international designer, manufacturer & distributor brand that has joined the FrenchFab and French Healthcare networks, and
and invests in the research of solutions more respectful of the environment. The brand of a global product/service offer, with the best value/price ratio, innovative, recognized by laboratories”, explains Mrs. CLAVIER-DUBO.

There are five such territories:

→ LABELIANS CEB Factory: an innovative manufacturer and designer, a plastics and glass industrialist, a manufacturer of DM-DIV, either on its own, or under contract (OEM, Kit Makers…).
→ LABELIANS lines: a selection of products constituting a complete pre-analytical, peri-analytical and analytical offer, adapted to the processes of medical, industrial and research laboratories, at an excellent quality/price ratio.
→ LABELIANS partners: an innovation ecosystem. “As a FrenchFab leader in the laboratory world, LABELIANS leads a network of researchers and innovation players to support the process from ideation to industrialization, via its R&D and the co-development of new projects,” says Ms. BOLLING.
→ LABELIANS bioleader design: the laboratory designer who provides assurance of a sustainable layout that guarantees patient comfort, sample safety, process fluidity and productive and interconnected efficiency of patient rendering.
→ LABELIANS smart service: a personalized service around, in particular, metrology services, but also quality, training, audits (including within the framework of COFRAC), maintenance and 4.0, which brings digitalization into laboratory design and layout. “This digital touch offers real added value to our customers by enabling them to project themselves into a future workspace, improve workstation ergonomics, access a digital twin of the laboratory in which everyone can come and train in good practices or, for example, consult the standards required by current regulations,” explains Lionel BINOT, LABELIANS’ Chief Operating Officer.

By expanding into each of these territories, LABELIANS is confirming its position in the market, further strengthened by the crucial role played by its teams in the Covid19 diagnostic chain. As the undisputed leader of medical laboratories, with the ambition of always serving them better in France and throughout the world, LABELIANS now intends to open up more widely to industrial, academic and research laboratories, so that they can benefit from the expertise and the sense of proximity that has won over medical laboratories.