By Kevin W.P. Miller, MS, PhD
Director, Marketing and Scientific Engagement, HighRes Biosolutions, Beverly, MA
How Do You Know When the Time is Right?
Sometimes the need for change is obvious. Sometimes, it requires a bit of contemplation. This is as true for your home appliances, vehicles, and career as it is for your lab’s workflow processes. What may have worked well in the past may not be the right fit today.
When it comes to the quests for knowledge and competitive advantage in the broad and continually evolving scientific realm, a reliance on manual tools and workflows may hinder, rather than help, your path to success.
Below are ten signs that it’s time to change your processes from manual to semi-automated or take the next step from semi-automated to whole laboratory workflow automation. None of these are wholly exclusive. On the contrary, you will find significant areas of overlap when it comes to time, money, efficiency, and other valuable characteristics needed for a high-functioning lab.
The more situations with which you identify, the more your lab may benefit from automation.
#1 Time Isn’t on Your Side
Do you often wonder when science will figure out how to stop time so you can catch your breath? Automation can help you to yield the most from your time.
Automated hardware and software solutions can manage workflows and processing beyond business hours, including nights, weekends, and holidays. This means your lab can get more done in a typical day, week, or month compared to manual processing.
Automated solutions can also operate unattended, including nights, weekends, and holidays, while researchers focus on skilled tasks like data interpretation and collaboration.
In plate format, many advanced automated systems are equipped to process densities as low as 1536 wells and instantly scale in response to increased throughput demands to avoid time-consuming sample processing backups and speed project timelines.
Automated systems with creative consumable storage solutions, like under a liquid handling deck or in an integrated storage hotel, reduce time required to restock tips and plates. This is especially timesaving in multi-step workflows like NGS library preparation.
Data searches are quickly streamlined when data flows through whole lab workflow automation software as part of a data stack, and standardized reports save time on writing, formatting, and information compiling.
Finally, with careful performance monitoring and regular maintenance, your lab can prevent surprise hassles and delays due to unforeseen equipment malfunctions.
#2 Priorities are Constantly Juggled
With constant pressure to produce, your lab’s to-do list may be in a perpetual state of flux. Manual processing just can’t keep pace with that type of change. Automated workflows offer high-throughput processing to get more done in less time compared to manual processing.
Many automated systems can also execute on different assay protocols at the same time without risk of variability or errors. Coupled with walkaway operation, this multitasking can ease an overflowing workload without sacrificing quality.
And with whole lab workflow automation software, production runs can be scheduled to eliminate queuing or competing for device use.
If assay changes are in the mix, modular and mobile automated solutions rapidly and easily adapt on the fly to keep productivity aligned with priorities.
#3 Your Data are All Over the Place
Even the most careful individual or team cannot perform identically over time, which can wreak havoc in precision applications like NGS, cell and gene editing, and compound screening.
Manual performance variations impacting data consistency can occur at just about every workflow step and can be amplified by stress and fatigue. Variations can also occur as people interpret ambiguous or ill-defined steps like “mix briefly” or compete for shared equipment. Errors can even occur if data are manually entered into a LIMS or used in a manual calculation.
This makes it difficult to compare data between scientists and across labs and might even mean reworking samples. Variability and the resulting low-quality data also make it difficult to reproduce data over time or leverage AI-driven analysis.
On the other hand, automated systems are built to ensure data quality and consistency. Tasks performed by robotic devices are significantly more accurate, precise, and consistent than those performed by people. This greatly reduces risks of manually derived variation.
Overarching whole laboratory workflow automation software integrates the automated devices and manages them to create worklists, schedule tasks, and avoid unplanned waiting times.
The software can also track device use and performance to further support data consistency and a preventative maintenance program. The enhanced consistency and reproducibility of an automated system provides confidence in high-quality data during AI analysis.
#4 Current Workflows Lack the Uniformity You Need
People aren’t the only sources of variability. Using today’s ultra-sensitive chemistries, even small processing differences like incubation time can make a notable difference in results.
Robot-centric automated systems enable continuous or parallel processing with tight sample processing conditions.
In contrast, batch processing introduces variable waiting times along the workflow as plate processing time includes waiting for each previous plate to be completed. This adds up to weak uniformity and less confidence in results, especially as the workflow is scaled up to accommodate multiple plates.
Of note, batched processing times are often longer than parallel processing times due to accrued time spent waiting for device availability or the next step in the process.
#5 Your Data are All Over the Place – Again!
Taking hours to search through multiple discrete data sources reduces productivity in other areas. At the same time, data gaps and lack of context may unintentionally obscure important findings.
In addition to orchestrating and scheduling workflows, whole lab workflow automation software streamlines data flow and capture from automated and manual sources to an integrated and highly organized digital software stack that includes a laboratory information management system (LIMS). This software can also collect meta and event-based data and associate it with analytical data for highly contextual results and a robust audit trail throughout the workflow.
Whole lab workflow automation software works with the data stack to ensure that data in all shapes and sizes is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. In addition to saving time and hassles, this aids in continuous improvement efforts and facilitates AI-powered mining and analysis.
#6 There’s No More Space for People or Devices
Are you tasked with getting more done but simply don’t have the space for more equipment or people? Do you feel like your lab is bursting at the seams? You aren’t alone.
At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive to add an automated solution into an already crowded lab, but the right solution can incorporate creative ways to use lab space – and to do so without having to hire extra labor.
For crowded spaces, opt for compact automated liquid handlers that utilize vertical space, using stationary and dynamic trays to house on-deck devices and consumables without taking up valuable horizontal space or requiring off-deck consumable storage. To extend this utility, look for those with robotic arms that can reach off-deck devices.
Mobility is another creative way to make the most of crowded lab space. With specialized shelved carts and docking capabilities, vertical space is again leveraged, and the devices can be easily maneuvered around the lab or facility as needed.
#7 Budgets are Colliding with Operations
Automation is a budget game-changer when looking at the big picture. Automation takes over mundane workflow tasks so that users are free to focus on high-value activities like data interpretation. This helps labs to enhance a lab’s return on existing staff resources without overspending on full-time employee (FTE) labor.
In addition to walkaway operation, automated systems can leverage whole lab workflow automation software to schedule assays and production runs outside of normal laboratory hours. This reduces the need for overtime compensation, boosts productivity and maximizes return on the capital expenditure investment.
With highly consistent performance, automated assays can be miniaturized to save on samples and reagents, and there’s less risk of having to rework assays due to human error.
Finally, with detailed control of maintenance, there’s less risk of costly unplanned downtime.
#8 Personal Safety is an Ongoing Concern
Manual tasks like hand pipetting can cause and aggravate repetitive strain that may disrupt a person’s ability to complete many daily activities even beyond those requiring repetitive motion. In addition to an individual’s physical harm and collateral emotional stress, repetitive stress injuries can impede the team’s productivity due to lost hours.
Lab productivity and personal safety are also risked when lab members accidentally contact harmful pathogens or chemicals.
In an automated workflow, devices perform the tedious and repetitive tasks instead of people to eliminate or profoundly reduce the risk of repetitive strain. And, without active involvement in these tasks, people are less exposed to potentially harmful substances.
#9 You Want to Proactively Address Risks
Although risk cannot be fully disentangled from life science research, automated workflows can reduce risk.
We’ve already discussed automation in context of reducing personal safety risks. An automated system can also reduce sample integrity risks by providing and monitoring an ideal environment throughout the sample life cycle.
Whole lab workflow automation software unites all devices in the system and sends status updates and alerts for peace of mind as well as highly detailed audit trail documentation including meta data to satisfy quality and regulatory requirements.
In addition to proactive monitoring and documentation, many automated systems offer lockouts and permission-based access to prevent accidental changes.
#10 Change is Coming
Change is inevitable, especially in life sciences. But change doesn’t have to coincide with major disruption to lab productivity.
A scalable and modular automated system is future-proofed; meaning that it can easily adapt to new, changed, or additional assay chemistries, multiple plate types, and changing throughputs or lab needs instead of ending up obsolete.
New devices can be easily and quickly integrated into automated systems, while those with an open application programming interface (API) architecture ensure smooth data flow.
Automated systems offering device mobility allow for change adaptation in any lab across the facility as needs dictate.
About the author: As Director, Marketing and Scientific Engagement at HighRes Biosolutions in Beverly, MA, Kevin Miller remains committed to unlocking life science progress and efficiency through automation. He earned a PhD in Molecular Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and has over 16 years of laboratory automation experience. His professional journey includes developing and directing the Professional Science Master's Degree Program in Forensic Science at the California State University, Fresno, developing patented software to automate forensic facial reconstruction, and serving as Program Manager for an FBI mtDNA population database. Dr. Miller is responsible for shaping the HighRes Biosolutions brand while driving market outreach and establishing thought leadership.