GROWTH
© Fraunhofer IPA / Rainer Bez
Tech-driven labs
T
The holistic nerve center of an interconnected company
he term laboratory covers a very broad list of functionalities and activities from research and development to analytics and testing. As depicted by the Latin origin of the word “laborare”, the lab was associated for a long time with suffering and intense exhausting labour. Furthermore, despite successful implementations throughout other areas of a company, the lab seemed to be inaccessible to optimisation efforts, robotics, efficiency paradigms or standardisation. Evaluation and drivers of value generation within the product-focused business architecture focused on production and business development.
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Accordingly, laboratories were often just loosely coupled to the main value stream and value generation. Against this backdrop, the laboratory was mainly seen by senior management as a cost factor and an object of outsourcing strategies. Mario Bott PROJECT MANAGER, nICLAS, FRAUNHOFER IPA Mario heads Fraunhofer IPA’s innovation center for laboratory automation Stuttgart (nICLAS), connecting manufacturers, users and researchers to address all challenges related to labs and bio production
DATA-DRIVEN VALUE GENERATION
In the recent past, the role of laboratories has undergone a silent but profound transition. The fundamental service and value proposition of laboratories has taken on greater significance, now focusing on the generation of data. The digital- or fourthindustrial revolution provides a powerful set of new technologies. Even more disruptive is the accompanying and