Robert M Wenzel, Director of London Global Laboratories, has designed and developed the AutoMate® 2500 Series software innovation for Beckman Coulter, world-leading manufacturer of biomedical laboratory instruments. Wenzel is a specialist in medical laboratory automation and drew from over 15 years of experience in software development, machine learning, and intelligent pattern recognition in designing the software for this successful robotics system.
Robert M Wenzel, Director of London Global Laboratories. Image credit: Beckman Coulter
The Automate 2500 medical sample distribution system performs high-speed sorting and aliquoting of sample tubes, substantially increasing the speed and efficiency of laboratory sample processing. About one of his large scale projects, Wenzel says, “This is a complex robotics system and seeing all the robots working in synchronization is like experiencing a very good symphony; everything plays well together and is in perfect harmony.”
Impressed with the results of this successful collaboration, Michael Eberhardt, Director of Product Development and Laboratory Automation at Beckman Coulter, commented “Robert is a strong leader of a development team. He is very analytic, but has still the right level of pragmatism in realization ... [London Global Laboratories] provided excellent services and [Robert] was the one driving the software development and the team for the main product line.”
Having built several successful start-ups from scratch, such as denro AG (which was sold to Siemens), Wenzel recommends businesses should use structured development processes from the very beginning – even SMEs.
R Wenzel developed the software for AutoMate 2550 (Beckman Coulter)
“When I founded denro AG, money was extremely tight and we tried our hardest to succeed with a hands-on development approach. A structured development process like TSP/PSP would have saved us a lot of time and money and benefited our small team tremendously. I learned this lesson the hard way.”
“I really wish I would have had an external consultant on board to help with this kind of out-of-the-box thinking, inspections, reviews and so on. It doesn’t matter if you have a well-established team or start from scratch, the best structured development processes are worthless unless you have a clear picture of the products and services you want to develop. Even the best ideas can fail without leadership and a clear product vision” added Wenzel.
London Global Laboratories offers consultation to help companies develop software for robotics products, automation and machine learning technologies. With over 15 years of experience in leading both large scale and start-up development projects, London Global Laboratories has a proven track record of delivering substantial commercial gains for clients in variety of different sectors, ranging from medical laboratory robotics to defence, building technologies and life sciences.