ALS Limited () is a company headquartered in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, 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.

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 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 skill, Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to Separation process, separate, identify, and Quantification (science), quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute t ...

services for the

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

and mineral exploration 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. Between 2011 and 2017, ALS accelerated expansion into life sciences, adding services in pharmaceutical and health care, as well as food safety and quality testing.

Operations

With more than 19,000 staff, ALS operates from over 350 locations in 70 plus countries throughout

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, the Pacific,

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. The company is currently divided into several business streams: * Life Sciences: Operates laboratories specialising in

environmental monitoring Environmental monitoring is the processes and activities that are done to characterize and describe the state of the environment. It is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, and in many circumstances in which human activit ...

, 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 e ...

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

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 Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

, 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

External links

Campbell Brothers digital story and oral history: Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame 2012

State Library of Queensland State Library of Queensland (State Library) is the state public reference and research library of Queensland, Australia, operated by the Government of Queensland, state government. The Library is governed by the Library Board of Queensland, whi ...

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