Lab Manager Insights Buyers Report May 2012 : Page 5TRENDS AND FEATURES OEMs also provide validation packages for instruments and reagent kits, greatly reducing this tedious process in users’ workfl ows, notes Sikander Gill, Ph.D., of Aurora Biomed (Vancouver, BC). “This enables customers to purchase both the application and the solution, while vendors benefi t from continued sales of consumables.” The evolved product mix may result, he says, from “OEM partnerships” or through diversifi cation of research and development teams within the equipment company. as their numbers dwindle at companies); it’s due to a shift in user expectations: end users and their employers increas-ingly stress walk-up operation and short learning curves, and vendors comply. 62)7:$5( Some experts would argue that software and interfaces have been the most signifi cant areas of change for scien-tifi c instrumentation. “ALH software needs to keep pace with customer needs,” says Gill, by providing ready access to “complex assay and integration” capabilities through a user-friendly interface. Advances in computing and data storage began in earnest with Microsoft DOS. Microsoft Windows® provided a glimpse into the possibilities of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), particularly for “distributed” workstations such as liquid handlers that may be connected to several other instruments. But even with graphical interfaces, users faced system-level involvement in programming and engineering. “We were conditioned to accept a situation that wasn’t quite perfect,” says Tom Osborne, product manager at PerkinElmer (Waltham, MA). j Automated Homogenizer Liquid Handling System | LH96 Omni International | www.omni-inc.com ő$/+FDQHQVXUHWKH DFFXUDF\RIXOWUD VPDOO YROXPHGLVSHQVLQJŒ Younger scientists raised on electronic gadgets, portability, interconnectivity, and out-of-the-box usability are pushing the boundaries of software and interface expectations even fur-ther. “Vendors need to invest in GUIs that are more ‘purpose built’ for walk-up utility for mainstream audiences who are interested in answering scientifi c questions in 12 minutes, not in method development or engineering,” Osborne comments. “At this stage all the major vendors are passionate about this.” According to Greg Robinson, director of automation products at Gilson (Middleton, WI), vendors dedicate sig-nifi cant effort to software and interfaces, specifi cally so that: • Overall robustness prevents crashes. • Drag-and-drop functionality creates methods more rapidly and reliably. • Interactive, dynamic task pages update automatically based on the user’s selection; for example, hiding or uncovering certain fi elds in context, depending on the selection. Pages should display only the required entry boxes and selections. This improves software usability, reduces mistakes, and ultimately increases the effi -ciency of method development. • The ability to automatically optimize the application or protocol effectively reduces instrument wait time. • They allow interaction with peripheral devices such as balances, bar code readers, chillers, heaters, pH meters, shakers, and anything else that affects the workfl ow. • Manual controls (related to simulation) allow users to perform base-level functions such as priming solvent lines and troubleshooting error conditions or application issues. • Simulation. Users require modeling capabilities to test methods visually on a computer screen before actually running the instrument and wasting reagents and pre-cious samples, etc. This advanced feature allows users to spot any issues that may negatively affect either the experiment or the instrument. Thought leaders at research centers still interact with in-strumentation in this manner, but the underlying philoso-phy of instrument control is changing. This isn’t because instrument experts are disappearing from universities (even May 2012 ,16,*+76 5 Publication List |
