Beckman Sells Data Processing Center

Here’s another one for that fat file on corporate slim-downs.

Beckman Instruments Inc., the giant Fullerton company that makes instruments for medical and research laboratories, recently quit doing its own data processing.

It sold its 70,000-square-foot processing center in Brea to Systems Management Specialists, a Santa Ana-based computer management company. Forty-three employees at the processing center were shifted to Systems’ payroll.

Those individuals still work at the same desks and earn the same amount of pay, although vacation and retirement benefits are reduced, said Bob Jackson, Beckman’s director of management information. Beckman expects to pay about $23 million to Systems for data processing over five years--about 20% less than it would have paid if it had handled the work itself, Jackson said.

Patrick Dolan, Systems’ president, said that overall compensation for the employees should be comparable with what they received at Beckman because they’re eligible at Systems for performance-based bonuses that they didn’t get at Beckman.

Dolan added that among those employees, “Morale is good. We’ve gotten a lot of ideas from these folks.”

About 120 other Beckman workers from the center remained with the company and have moved to other locations.