Deft – Your Workflow, Your Instruments, Made Digital
Your Digitalisation Process is about to become a lot easier.
Applied Scientific Technologies (AST) of Stokesley, North Yorkshire announced a new Digitalisation product they have developed branded as Deft. The Digital Enabled Formulation Toolset (Deft) provides the information gap when comparing manually made bench formulations and offers a new way for scientists to accurately create formulation instructions with ease. Deft was developed in conjunction with research and formulation scientists, but its versatility means Deft is able to cover many other laboratory types and processes, including microbiology labs and drug discovery applications.
Deft is your first step onto the digitalisation ladder and Lab-of-the-Future program.
Deft works at the bench alongside the Scientist and has been developed using a mobile phone or tablet App which acts as an on-board guide while digitally recording all information. Deft allows the scientist to take pictures, make notes and record videos to add to the formulation instructions, allowing the scientist to spend more of their time conducting experiments. Without Deft, formulation steps are only as accurate as the scientist’s memory and note taking, leaving the way for experiment failures, illegible writing and transcription errors. Deft eliminates these risks and improves the quality of data, reproducibility and lab efficiency.
The product is built on the growing SiLA2 (Standardisation in Lab Automation) Rapid Integration protocol. Data captured by Deft, can be used for audit/verification of formulations, modelling and process scale up.
Early adopters have begun to use Deft within their labs or workplace. AST have received positive feedback from all their clients who are using the product and have found it to be user friendly, efficient, and clear.
“The scanning of the materials was really good - really quick and efficient as we don’t have to write everything by hand”
“The experience is user friendly - it doesn’t confine you to formulating in a certain way, allows you to be flexible”
“I found the weighing out of materials easy and clear. Nice to have the measurements recorded for you”
“After 10 minutes of training, our scientists were set up and running with Deft”
Equipment
Deft supports equipment such as Balances, Digital Pipettes, Hotplate Stirrers, pH meter, Overhead Stirrers and Rheometers
Deft is one of the few digitalisation tools that work at the actual bench alongside the lab worker and has the ability to integrate with existing laboratory information management systems (LIMS) as well as supporting standalone bench equipment such as a Balance, Digital Pipette, Hotplate Stirrers, pH meter, Overhead Stirrers and Rheometers.
Deft consists of a Site Data Manager, Wireless Router, Tablet and the Gateway (Deft). Each Deft Gateway supports up to four lab instruments via BluetoothTm protocol into a Laboratory 4.0 digital network. The Deft Gateway then connects to the wider network via standard Wifi protocol. The Deft system is infinitely scalable by simply adding more Gateways and lab instruments. Deft even supports legacy equipment, so no need to update your existing equipment stock. All Deft Gateways connect wirelessly to an internal network or Cloud-based service. Deft also receives wireless updates through the AST Cloud, this updates both the App and Gateways to support new devices, new features, improvements and optimisations. AST Cloud services can be used to monitor the lab equipment network remotely for performance indicators, use, remote diagnostics and enterprise management of valuable lab resources and even check if a lab instrument is calibrated or requires a service via a host of reporting tools and KPI dashboards.
Once each instrument is recorded into the Deft network, they can be controlled via the intuitive and user-friendly App. Data can be input manually or automatically from a LIMS or other ERP systems allowing the operator to design their experiment and workflow from within the App. You can view the progress or monitor your experiment remotely in real time and can help organise a scientist’s schedule knowing when the experiment will be finished and equipment made available again.
Critically, and coming from a military and safety controls automation background, the makers of Deft have fully protected all communications with End-to-End encryption protocols and secured data transfer and recovery with an UPS to ensure all your data is never lost.
Applied Scientific Technologies (AST) is an emerging spin-out company founded in 2017 based in Stokesley, North Yorkshire. Founded by two directors from Applied Integration UK Ltd, a company celebrating its 15th working anniversary. AST are innovative specialists in robotics, automated control systems and hardware integration in the laboratory, chemical, pharmaceutical, physical and life science arenas supporting your digitalization journey.
Deft is available to purchase now. For more information on the product please call our Applied Scientific Technologies team today on 01642 717550, visit our website www.appliedst.co.uk or alternatively email us at sales@appliedst.co.uk.