Requirements analysis: software of a laboratory device for automated sample preparation

The new software to be designed controls a robot that prepares samples for chromatographic analyses and injects them into the chromatpgraphy systems. This involves complex workflows that include not only transports and pipetting steps, but also the control of various attachments that can, for example, shake, heat, cool, evaporate, mix. The optimal control of these different sample preparation steps as well as the nesting of the processing of different samples, for example to efficiently use waiting times or centrifugation times, is the task of the software. End customers usually design their sample preparation themselves and optimize it for their instrument constellation, so the software must be very flexible in its configuration. The integration in the laboratories is very diverse, the complete spectrum from the configuration of an individual sample preparation to the automated control of the software via standardized interfaces must be mapped.