Combining Lean with Lab Automation to Get Impressive Results

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXII No. 10 – July 13, 2015 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: By combining total lab automation with Lean techniques in a comprehensive makeover of its microbiology lab, one of the largest labs providing hospital acute care and community microbiology services in North America achieved major benefits. Benefits ranged from impro…

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Alan Lloyd, 62, Dies of Cancer, Formerly CIO of Sonic Health

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XIX No. 15 – October 29, 2012 Issue

THIS SUMMER, the global clinical laboratory industry lost a true innovator in medical laboratory management, operations, and informatics. On August 8, 2012, Dr. Alan Lloyd died peacefully at home from pancreatic cancer. Lloyd was widely-respected for his unique approaches to laboratory operations, l…

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New Clinical Lab Trends To Shape Events in 2010

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVII No. 1 – January 4, 2010 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: In presenting this list of macro trends for clinical laboratories, several themes are in play. They range from a continued emphasis on improving lab operations to the need to acquire and deploy sophisticated information technology. During the next few years, the long…

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Olympus Diagnostics Unit Sold to Beckman Coulter

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVI No. 4 – March 16, 2009 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: For Beckman Coulter, the opportunity to acquire the diagnostics business of Olympus Corporation was compelling for at least two reasons. One, the chemistry and automation products of both companies are quite complementary. Two, in a steadily-consolidating in vitro di…

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Lab Automation Advocates Gather in Kobe, Japan

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XV No. 6 – May 5, 2008 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: Everything relating to automation in clinical laboratory operations was the theme of the sixth “International Conference of Laboratory Automation and Robotics,” conducted last month in Kobe, Japan. Because laboratories in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan have two and three decade…

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Univ. of Tokyo Hospital Lab Has Plenty of Automation

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XV No. 6 – May 5, 2008 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: In Japan, many clinical laboratories are in their third decade of using automation. At the University of Tokyo Hospital, total laboratory automation (TLA) was first implemented in 1991. Now on its fourth generation TLA system, this laboratory was worked upstream to automate s…

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Key Trends Drive Change for Clinical Laboratories

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XIV No. 1 – January 8, 2007 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: Technology plays an ever-growing role in reshaping the organization and operation of clinical laboratories. New technologies figure prominently in THE DARK REPORT’S 2007 list of key trends in the clinical laboratory industry. Technological advances in instr…

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Pathologist-Entrepreneurs Offer New Lab Automation

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XIII No. 11 – August 14, 2006 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: Since October 2003, the core laboratory of Detroit Medical Center University Laboratories has operated with a home-grown total laboratory automation (TLA) system. The 100-foot automated line currently connects to 11 instruments and the hardware cost only $200,000 to build and…

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More Labs Opt to Use and Lab Automation

By Robert Michel | From the Volume XIII No. 8 – June 12, 2006 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: Many of the nation’s more innovative laboratory organizations are paying closer attention to laboratory productivity and operational performance. To achieve improved operations, these labs are putting three tools to greater use. They are using targeted automation solutions …

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Retrospective on Lab Automation in Japan

By R. Lewis Dark | From the Volume XIII No. 6 – May 1, 2006 Issue

DO YOU REMEMBER BACK TO THE FIRST TIME YOU HEARD NEWS that national lab companies like MetPath, Inc. and…

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