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ALS Limited () is a company headquartered in
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...
, Australia, which provides testing, inspection, certification, and verification services out of over 370 sites across 65 countries. In 2012, the company was inducted into the
Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame In 2009 State Library of Queensland, the Queensland Library Foundation and the QUT Business School The QUT Business School is one of six faculties at the Queensland University of Technology. It is home to the QUT Graduate School of Business, a ...
.


History


Campbell Brothers

The company now known as ALS was founded in Brisbane in 1863 by a Scottish immigrant, Peter Morrison Campbell as 'Campbell Brothers', a soap manufacturer located in the suburb of Kangaroo Point. In 1881, the business moved to a site at
Bowen Hills Bowen Hills is an inner north-eastern suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the Bowen Hills had a population of 3,226 people. Geography Bowen Hills is by road from the Brisbane CBD. Mayne is a neighbourhood within the s ...
where it operated for the following 100 years, producing various soaps and cleaning chemicals. In 1952, the company was publicly floated and listed on the local stock exchange as 'Campbell Brothers Limited'. In 2012, Campbell Brothers Limited was renamed 'ALS Limited', and has divested its former manufacturing businesses.


Australian Laboratory Services

ALS commenced laboratory testing operations in Brisbane as ‘Australian Laboratory Services' in 1976 as a privately owned company. The company initially provided
analytical chemistry Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...
services for the
oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitut ...
and
mineral exploration Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...
industries, and grew steadily in its first decade of operations. In 1981, Campbell Brothers acquired a controlling stake in Australian Laboratory Services, and purchased the remaining shares by the mid 1980s. Following rapid growth and diversification across Australia in the 1980s, ALS expanded into Asia and South America in the 1990s, before expanding into North America, Africa, and Europe in the early 2000s and finally the Middle East in 2011. ALS became one of the world's largest providers of laboratory analysis services to the minerals industry, after acquiring North American mineral laboratory groups 'Chemex Labs' in December 1999, and 'Bondar Clegg' in December 2001.


Operations

With more than 18,000 staff, ALS operates from over 350 locations in 70 plus countries throughout Australia,
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
, the Pacific, North America and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
,
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, and
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. The company is currently divided into several business streams: * Life Sciences: Operates laboratories specialising in
environmental monitoring Environmental monitoring describes the processes and activities that need to take place to characterize and monitor the quality of the environment. Environmental monitoring is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, as well a ...
, food and pharmaceutical, electronics, and consumer products market sectors. * Commodities: Provides testing services for the global mining industry in service areas such as
geochemistry Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the ...
, metallurgy,
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
, mine site services and inspection. Mineral services cover the entire resource life-cycle from exploration, spectral mineralogy, feasibility, production, design, development through to trade, and finally rehabilitation. * Industrial: Provides diagnostic testing and engineering services for the energy, resources, transportation and infrastructure sectors.


References

Manufacturing companies of Australia Chemical companies of Australia Commercial laboratories Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Australian companies established in 1863 Manufacturing companies established in 1860 {{Australia-company-stub