How Tecan Speeds Instrument Service with Artel
To help customers maximize uptime and optimize the performance of their automated liquid handlers, Tecan’s Te-Care™ service program relies on the Artel technology in their QC Kit for volume verifications.
<30 Minutes per instrument
Using the QC Kit with Artel’s proprietary technology, a Te-Care service representative can assess the accuracy and precision of a system’s volume transfers quickly and efficiently.
1 – 96 Dispensing tips individually evaluated
Unlike gravimetry, Artel’s technology, provides performance measurements for each dispensing channel so customers can have complete confidence in their instrument.
>1,000s Hours saved
The speed and simplicity of Artel’s technology means that the Te-Care service program saves time, maximizing system uptime for Tecan’s customers.
Product used: Artel’s Ratiometric Photometry™ technology in
Tecan’s QC Kit
Application: Calibration, Volume verification
SITUATION
As a leading provider of liquid handling workstations for life science laboratories, Tecan has thousands of systems installed in labs across the globe.
To help keep these systems as reliable, productive, and precise as possible, the company offers customers the Te-Care™ service program.
An important part of this service is ensuring that volume transfers are within desired specifications.
CHALLENGE
However, verifying volume transfers for liquid handling workstations can be time-consuming and/or labor-intensive, leading to prolonged instrument downtime.
For example, gravimetry—which relies on a high-performance balance to measure the volume added to a multi-well plate—is slow, labor-intensive, and cannot provide data for individual dispensing tips.
“Home-brewed” dye-based systems are also time-consuming to implement as the reagents require extensive standardization and calibration.
SOLUTION
To speed volume verification, Tecan turned to Artel’s proprietary Ratiometric Photometry™ technology, which is incorporated into the QC Kit used by the Te-Care service program and offered as a turn-key QC solution to customers.
The QC Kit can quickly verify the precision of each liquid handler dispensing tip with traceable, standardized measurement data, giving customers complete confidence in the performance of their equipment.
Meeting high standards
Tecan takes pride in the strength of its service organization and its ability to provide solutions that meet the requirements of its customers. The Te-Care™ service program supports Tecan’s automated liquid handler customers with installation and operation qualification, routine scheduled maintenance, and repair services.
One of Tecan’s service options is precision and accuracy verification, which helps life science labs save time and resources while meeting internal quality standards and external regulatory requirements. However, performing volume verifications can take a great deal of time, resulting in liquid handler downtime and lost productivity for the customer. To maximize instrument uptime while ensuring quality, Te-Care service performs volume verifications with Tecan’s QC Kit, a product which incorporates Artel’s proprietary Ratiometric Photometry™ technology in co-branded consumables.
A seamless fit with Tecan’s service program
Artel’s technology fits seamlessly within the support program of Tecan for a number of reasons, including its ability to verify the precision of liquid handling and multichannel pipetting arms within Tecan’s manufacturing specifications as well as pipetting accuracy; its applicability to automated liquid handling systems ranging from 1 to 384 dispensing tips; and its ability to generate measurement data on a tip-by-tip basis. Also, because the QC Kit is easy to use and performs volume measurements in minutes, it has helped Tecan improve the efficiency of its service offering.
Most importantly, Artel’s technology enables measurements that are traceable to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). This means that the data derived from one lab that uses the QC Kit to verify liquid handler performance can be compared with the data from another lab that also uses the QC Kit, ensuring liquid handling consistency across separate locations. The QC Kit is, in effect, a stable, unchanging yardstick – a standard that can be employed at labs across Tecan’s life sciences customer base.
For Tecan, the QC Kit with Artel’s technology hits all the high points required for a liquid handling verification service offering: NIST traceability, portability, ease of use, robustness to withstand shipping to customer locations—all with the backing and reputation of Artel.
Customer Stories
Tecan – Who we are
Tecan (www.tecan.com) is a leading global provider of laboratory instruments and solutions in biopharmaceuticals, forensics and clinical diagnostics. The company specializes in the development, production and distribution of automated workflow solutions for laboratories in the life sciences sector. Its clients include pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, university research departments, forensic and diagnostic laboratories.
As an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), Tecan is also a leader in developing and manufacturing OEM instruments and components that are then distributed by partner companies. Founded in Switzerland in 1980, the company has manufacturing, research and development sites in both Europe and North America and maintains a sales and service network in 52 countries.