Soil Testing Laboratory Business: A good Idea 1

[sepehrm]

Hello everyone,

I am an engineer with some experience in geotechnical consulting and a graduate degree. As a long-term goal, I am considering investing time, money and research to start my own professional business services.

I was thinking about soil testing services for geotechnical purposes; but am not aware of the accreditation, logistics, budgets, etc. Basically don’t even know where to start.

Any feedback is appreciated. It is even a business line worth being considered?

 

[Ron]

I would suggest that you work for one of the larger, major geotechnical and material testing firms before you consider going on your own. The larger companies usually participate in reference testing and national audits for their QA programs.

 

[EireChch]

Its a nice long term goal to be a business owner and your own boss.

But I agree with RON, get at least 5 years experience in a Lab. Even then, you may need to higher an experienced Manager to help with the technical and management side of things.

 

[sepehrm]

Thanks to you both!

 

[Kalamboogle]

You need to ask yourself, what kind of lab are you trying to open. If you are solely doing proctors, wash 200's, and Atterbergs then awesome, equipment costs will be cheap. If you want to do some of the "higher end" testing such as permeabilities, consolidation, triaxial, CBR, etc... this will require specialized equipment and is not cheap at all (also you have to have external sources calibrate the equipment as well which is not cheap).

In order to become accredited, you have to create your own internal quality system which is a pain. Equipment calibrations, training records, the personnel running the tests has to be certified, etc... Once you feel confident to become accredited, you have to have on site assessments every 2 years and participate in annual proficiency samples. In addition, if you don't have an auditor on staff to perform annual QA audits, you have to bring in an external auditor to do so.

Generally, geotechnical and construction materials testing laboratories aren't typically a mom & pop show and if they are, they have been established for a long time. I have come across a few and they usually get gobbled up by the nationwide companies.