Clinical Laboratory Automation Solutions
Motoman’s Life Sciences Applications group brings experience and understanding of clinical diagnostics specimen processing along with Motoman and Yaskawa Electric products and technology to the challenge of improving the efficiency, accuracy and robustness of many clinical laboratory operations.
Motoman takes an industrial engineering approach to characterization of laboratory processes and development and analysis of improvement strategies. These techniques have been recently popularized in the clinical laboratory process improvement realm, while “Six Sigma” and “lean” have been operating principles for factory automation for many years. Process improvement and automation are Motoman’s core competencies.
Working with a number of high-volume reference laboratories, Motoman brought leading-edge industrial automation technology to the clinical laboratory field beginning in 1999. Laboratory requirements for extremely high throughput while maintaining flexibility were similar to many industrial automation challenges previously faced by Motoman.
Products
AutoSorter
AutoSorter was Motoman’s first solution to high volume sorting and processing for the clinical lab market. Additional AutoSorter products have followed AutoSorter I, improving on the original design and offering alternative capabilities and configurations to meet a broad range of laboratory requirements.
- High-speed specimen sorting
- Improved sorting accuracy
- Full specimen traceability
- Flexibility to process multiple specimen configurations & many personality racks
- Concurrent archiving
- High system availability
AutoSorter I utilizes Motoman’s unique RobotWorld planar-drive technology and has been operating in some of the highest-volume clinical labs in the world since 1999. High throughput (greater than 2,000 specimens per hour), flexibility to handle a wide variety of specimen configurations, and configurability to fit into each lab’s unique workflow are some of the benefits of AutoSorter I realized by laboratories using this product. AutoSorter I is effective as a pre-clinical specimen sorter as well as a post-clinical specimen sorter/archiver. |
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AutoSorter II leverages many of AutoSorter I’s advantages into a lower cost, easy to maintain workcell adding additional process capabilities for inspection, capping, etc. |
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Motoman will soon be introducing AutoSorter III, to bring reliable specimen processing automation into many hospital and medical center environments. AutoSorter III will include a new, linear-drive motion platform with multiple specimen handlers packaged in a compact footprint. Specimens may be centrifuged, decapped, and loaded into instrument-specific racks ready for testing. Planned enhancements include direct loading to track systems and aliquoting. |
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AutoELISA
Motoman's AutoELISA is a high throughput platform for automated Enzyme Linked InmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA) processing of microtiter plates. AutoELISA is one of a variety of lifescience automation products based upon Motoman's RobotWorld, an industrial process automation platform that brings high reliability and productivity to the repetitive assay laboratory bench.
- Large processing workspace
- Concurrent processing with multiple handlers
- Industrialized design for reliability
- User programmable with multiple assays
- Standard third-party instrumentation
Capabilities/Services
Motoman is available to consult with laboratory managers on process improvement objectives to develop and build optimized solutions for specimen processing workflow. These solutions make best use of AutoSorter and other Yaskawa/Motoman platforms in addition to unique automation process solutions and integration of multiple process cells into fully automated workflow solutions including informatics (middleware). Examples of unique single workcell solutions to fully automated pre- and post-clinical processing solutions may be found in case studies and videos.