Tecan Launches Digital Tools to Enhance Lab Productivity

Tecan is proud to unveil two cutting-edge digital products – LabNavigator and Next-Gen Introspect – at the SLAS2024 International Conference and Exhibition to improve the efficiency of laboratory operations. The new tools bring the transformative power of digitalisation to laboratory operations, empowering researchers and lab technicians with the most advanced, user-friendly, integrated technologies.

The scale-up of laboratory research is often hindered by a lack of automation expertise and the complexity brought by disconnected workflows. As throughput increases, digitalisation is crucial to overcoming these challenges by streamlining lab processes, as well as maximising overall lab effectiveness and helping lab technicians to overcome skill barriers. 

LabNavigator is a cloud-based, intuitive digital product that guides lab operators through end-to-end workflows using a single, straightforward interface. It builds an interconnected lab by seamlessly combining lab equipment – including Tecan liquid handling platforms and selected third-party devices – as part of an open digital ecosystem. LabNavigator creates easy-to-follow end-to-end workflows, enabling entry-level staff to effectively operate systems via a user-friendly interface that provides quick and easy onboarding. This not only multiplies the impact of experienced personnel, it increases the quality and reproducibility of lab processes. Overall, the ‘single pane of glass’ approach unifies heterogeneous automation systems to enable seamless scalability across multiple labs.

“The lab of the future is here,” said Dr Klaus Lun, Executive Vice President of Life Sciences Business Division at Tecan. “We have been empowering our customers to improve lab productivity through automation for over 40 years, and we are proud to champion the advantages of digitalisation. With LabNavigator and Next-Gen Introspect, we can provide tangible results for our customers – reducing operator training needs, increasing run success rates, maximising overall equipment and labor efficiencies, and providing data-driven actionable insights.”

Tecan’s second digital product announcement is Next-Gen Introspect, which will be commercially released in Q2 2024. This state-of-the-art laboratory insights tool builds on Tecan’s well-established platform, Introspect. The next generation platform offers intuitive user experience, employing advanced data science to convert instrument and workflow data into actionable insights that will maximise the utilisation, quality and performance of instrument fleets. Next-Gen Introspect unlocks service excellence by enabling remote diagnostics and service support, leading to higher instrument uptimes and fewer unplanned outages. The existing features focused on run success rates, consumables consumption and real-time monitoring, have been meticulously enhanced, helping lab managers to truly maximise their valuable resources. Both Next-Gen Introspect and LabNavigator are built on modern and secure back-end architectures, ensuring data and process security.