Ashburn Chemical Technologies was established in Houston, Texas in 1968 as a regional manufacturer of metalworking fluids and lubricants.  They also provide full service industrial fluid maintenance in partnership with Fluid Service Technologies.  We review their utility of their website from the End User side only.  They make it clear what this company is all about beginning with a busy and boring logo.  Like IBM with the outline of a typewriter around it.  Personally, I would drop the ho-hum drum and text.  The "A-flask-flame" combo is actually pretty cool.  They just couldn't stop there I guess.  Ah shucks, we made them mad at us now.  Well, we didn't start this magazine to make friends.  We started it to help End Users. (And we're right about the logo anyway).

PAGE TEST: (1 (out of 3))  Ashburn doesn't get it done to our liking here.  The best you get is each family of fluid formulations on a single page.   That gets them 1 point.  Products are broadly categorized by formulation but you will have to move back and forth to compare them.  A nice 4 page slider with subheadings, but get your finger ready; It's going to be a long trip.

CLICK TEST: (-5) Ouch!  Either you should be a great fan of their products or you should have lots of patience. You might know where to go next after about 4 clicks from home, but even then you are only looking at one family of fluids.  If you want to look at the other families for the best application, well, do the math.  Better get a sandwich and a notepad because you are going to be here a while.

CHART TEST: (0 (out of 3)).  No Chart, no points.  On the Technical Data Sheet (PDS, only five clicks from home) there is a nicely detailed chart of properties, but it’s product specific. You cannot compare anything easily.

LINK TEST: (2 (out of 3))  The MSDS and PDS links are readily available when you finally get to the description.  If all were available from a single page, they would get that 3rd point.  Also, it's annoying that all of the pictures and primary text do not have links and you have to press the little "read more" button all the time.

CLASSIFICATION TEST:

Organization-  Basically good organization, but without a chart or at least single page visibility, is a lost cause.  On PDS they are comparatively much more organized.

Detail-  Good detail on the Product pages with decent application information provided.  Again, impressive detail and organization on the PDS's, if you can pass the patience test. 

Uniformity- Good uniformity at the family level.  Great uniformity at the PDS level.

To summarize, the detail needed is there, but very few End Users have the time needed to root it out.  We suspect the deep layer visitors are already customers. 

Overall grade - Needs a lot of work.  Ashburn has been around a while.  To be in business that long, you have to do a great many things very well.  Whatever those things are, their website isn't one of them.