Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA
Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA

Laboratory and Process Assessment - Digitalization and Automation Solutions in the Context of Laboratory 4.0

The Laboratory – how to become smart in every sense? Is it just another business unit that the typical assessment blueprints can easily cover?

Its nature is a highly complex infrastructure with a plethora of visible and hidden requirements and crosslinks. Only a precisely tailored approach can adequately assess laboratories and its processes and leverage its full potential by automation and digitalization.

How do you solve this problem? A comprehensive process analysis makes it possible to identify hidden requirements and describe critical process parameter in advance. It ensures that the tailored solutions do fit the requirements and needs in your laboratories.

Expand all Close all

    • Concrete proposals for optimizing laboratory processes with regard to automation and digitization
    • Structured analysis of all process operations and their requirement profiles
    • Market overview of commercially available systems
    • Creation of an individual roadmap for the implementation of automation and digitization solutions in the corresponding laboratory area

    • Identification of all stakeholders and their understanding of goals/vision
      • What do we want to achieve? What resources do we have available?
    • Recording of environmental parameters/infrastructure/utilization
      • Application of lean management and Six Sigma toolsets
        • Walkway analysis
        • Space utilization
        • Logistics processes, waste management
        • Utilization and waiting times at equipment
    • Process analysis and visualization at the unit operations level down to individual assays and test sequences
      • Documentation of individual process sequences
      • Consolidation into an overall sequence as swim lane diagram
      • Documentation of all data and material flows
    • User-centered analysis of process flows, creation of user journeys
    • Identification of bottlenecks in the process flow
      • Repetitive handling steps
      • Manual and/or error-prone process steps
      • Breaks in process chains
      • Bottlenecks in the process that prevent scaling
      • Technologies and equipment solutions used
      • Automation capability
      • Cost structure
    • Technology research and evaluation
      • Identification and analysis of possible metrics for quantitative improvement of the process flow
      • Concept development and outlining of possible developments/scenarios,
      • Presentation of the advantages and disadvantages of each scenario as well as evaluation of the necessary investment expenditure
      • Comparison and alignment of the developed concepts with the target picture of all stakeholders