THE COMPANY
BALAGUÉ CENTER is a reference laboratory for special techniques, with international clients. Motivated among other reasons by its expansion and growth stage, it decided to take a step forward in automating its processes with the aim of increasing reliability, reducing results delivery times and guaranteeing the traceability of its processes.
THE CHALLENGE
BALAGUÉ CENTER faced, beyond the possibility of continuing to use conventional techniques to absorb the high increases in demand for analysis and processing of sample volume, to resolve issues related to other operational processes prior to analytics, such as data entry and the reception and classification of samples, as well as other subsequent processes, such as the validation and conservation of the samples.
THE CONDITIONANTS
The special characteristics of the product to be handled made a standard solution unfeasible. The decision, then, opted for creating a new and personalized, innovative and creative solution. IFC TEAM was the engineering selected to carry out the project.
THE SOLUTION
Using techniques and technologies not common in this sector, an ambitious project was started to guarantee that the established objectives were exceeded. IFC TEAM robotized the handling of the samples during the different phases of the process, incorporated artificial vision for recognition and control of samples, provided RFID solutions to guarantee the identification and traceability of samples during the different phases of the process, integrated automated freezers in robotic environments for the conservation of 102,400 samples in the automated Seroteca of BALAGUÉ CENTER, and developed a powerful management software to control the set. The result has been an innovative reference solution to the needs raised by BALAGUÉ CENTER and shared by other laboratories with the same characteristics.
THE RESULTS
Due to its absolutely innovative nature within the sector, the project developed by IFC TEAM for BALAGUÉ CENTER was presented at a Medical Congress in Vienna in 2006. Knowing the experience that the IFC TEAM team could contribute, BALAGUÉ CENTER decided to assign responsibility to us of the Technical Project Management, as well as the development and industrialization of the automated Seroteca, since there was no comparable solution on the market at that time.