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The Blog

Selected category: Liquid Handling & Robotics

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10 causes of delay when rolling out laboratory instruments in genomics

By Claudio Bui

With complex products like laboratory instruments used to automate genomic testing, time to market is often a critical factor in determining whether or not to go ahead with product development. The obvious problem is that as projects become more complex and involve more teams with mixed competencies, calculating the time to market becomes more challenging. Based on my experience, here are some of the top reasons why companies significantly underestimate their time to market projections. If you can avoid these common pitfalls when launching new lab instruments and genomic tools, then the risk of your project being delayed is significantly reduced.

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Robotics software development kit: how to empower your development team

By Claudio Bui and Yves Wurmitzer

Innovating, developing and bringing a new automated liquid handling product to market quickly, before requirements and needs change, is no easy feat. A software development kit (SDK) supporting your platform and components enables your developers to spend less time worrying about how to control robotic components and more time creating optimal interactions between the end-user and their application. Let’s look in more detail at what a robotics SDK is, what features it should have, and what benefits the right SDK can bring to your development timeline.

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Liquid Handling 4.0: what to consider when selecting OEM robotic components

By Claudio Bui

Lab automation and liquid handling solutions are evolving rapidly, shaped by many of the same forces and disruptive technologies that define the fourth industrial revolution. Alongside Industry 4.0, you could say that the era of Liquid Handling 4.0 has arrived. In today’s fast-paced environment where engineers need to develop and adapt analytical platforms rapidly to address new markets and ever-changing applications, the choice of core robotics architecture and components can be crucial for success. Here are some important questions to ask when selecting OEM components and robotic platforms for automated liquid handling.

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Liquid Level Detection: why your pump needs a sixth sense

By David Wold

Taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell…humans rely on five exquisitely powerful senses to negotiate even the most mundane tasks. Liquid handling robots don’t have that luxury; they are required to perform repetitive, high-precision tasks more accurately and reliably than humans could ever manage. Choosing pumps with inbuilt sensors for liquid level detection (LLD) gives your liquid handling pump the “sixth sense” it needs to avoid costly errors and ensure liquid transfer accuracy every time. Here’s what you need to know about LLD when choosing a pump for your automated liquid handling platform.

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Is your OEM partner resting on its laurels? Six ways to tell

By Claudio Bui

Analytical instrumentation is evolving so fast that engineers run the risk of their robotic platforms becoming obsolete before the development cycle can be completed.  The competitive life science instrumentation market is expanding at an impressive 8.2% CAGR and is projected to be worth $85 Billion by 2022.¹ To keep ahead of the rapid rate of change, having a strategic OEM partner that is committed to continuous innovation and improvement is crucial.  How can you be sure that your automation components provider or OEM partner has what it takes to help you deliver your automated liquid handling solution with the reliability and performance your customers expect? Here are some important questions to consider.

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Five ways instrument utilization data can boost your lab’s efficiency

By Michelle Aichele



Are you guilty of making decisions without the data to back them up? In today’s busy labs, mission-critical decisions about laboratory equipment purchases, service contract renewals, consumables spending, and staffing are often made on the basis of incomplete information. Having a clear picture of instrument usage and burn rates of associated reagents and consumables can help you uncover new ways to cut costs and improve performance in the laboratory. In the previous article we highlighted how crucial it can be for labs to monitor instrument utilization data. Now let’s consider more specifically what you can learn from analyzing all this data.


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Is what you don’t know costing you? Why instrument utilization data could be your lab’s biggest asset

By Michelle Aichele

As we move into the 2019 budget cycle with signs of a global economic slowdown on the horizon, laboratory administrators are no doubt feeling the heat. A combination of poor forecasting, inefficient use of resources, and a sudden economic downturn could create the perfect storm to capsize operations. Despite these high stakes, critical decisions about budget allocation, expensive equipment purchases, workflow optimization and cost-cutting strategies are often made based on incomplete information or even pure guesswork about laboratory asset utilization.

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Four common pitfalls to avoid when choosing laboratory automation solutions

By Kevin Moore

When looking to maximize productivity in life science R&D, drug discovery, clinical studies or clinical diagnostics, laboratory automation is a crucial element. You may already have identified great solutions to automate individual applications and steps in your workflows, but unless these systems work together harmoniously, your lab’s overall productivity could still fall short of the mark. Whether your application area involves clinical diagnostics, genomics, cell biology, drug discovery, protein purification or something else altogether, we’ve identified some of the most common roadblocks to successful automation.

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Six questions to ask before choosing liquid handling robotic components for faster time to market

By Claudio Bui

When introducing a new product to the automated liquid handling market, getting there first with high quality and reliable hardware is vital to capturing and maintaining early market leadership. How can you gain that advantage when you have to balance requirements for customized high-performance robotics against an accelerated product launch?

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Buyers beware: software can make or break your success with automated liquid handling systems

By Jason Meredith

No matter how much you invest in a liquid handling automation system, it’s next to worthless without well-designed software. The hardware and robotics are certainly critical, but it is the software that can make a big difference in how easily you can program your system, tailor it to meet your needs, and track samples securely.

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Precision and accuracy – two pillars of data reliability

By Agnieszka Sitarska

The life science industry is constantly fighting to improve throughput and reduce costs through the ‘industrialization’ of research and development. You have to strike a balance between moving quickly (productivity) and ensuring that you are actually moving in the right direction (quality). Lab automation, including automated liquid handling, plays an essential role in ramping up productivity. Ensuring high quality liquid handling is therefore the key to securing the reliable data you need to meet your program goals.

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"Self aware" automation - SLAS 2016 presentation

By Hal Wehrenberg

What happens when the robots in your lab become self aware? Take a closer look at this issue and the possibilities by watching this presentation on self-aware automation from SLAS 2016. 

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