Hazardous Materials Cabinet Ready For 4.0

Tradition and Modernity

Hagen candidly admits that laboratory work is still very traditional. Nevertheless, as a new generation comes along the issue of digitalisation is automatically gaining in significance. The major trends that shape the chemical and pharmaceuticals industry naturally filter through to work in the laboratory.

He believes that the overall trend in the last three to four years indicates a radical change in the market, particularly in the pharmaceuticals sector. “Research is coming back from Asia to Europe,” Hagen explains. And markets are moving increasingly quickly. A growing number of production sites are being opened in Europe, and the time of the huge blockbusters is gone.

But where products need to get to consumers more quickly and there is a simultaneous lack of qualified professionals, the requirements for efficiency in development laboratories automatically increase.

How Routine Work Can be Automated

The desire for routine work to be automated wherever possible so that people can concentrate on the key tasks is something that Hagen hears increasingly often. And the issue of big data is slowly but forcefully coming onto the scene.

Regardless of whether it is in research, development, in-process monitoring, incoming goods testing or quality management — wherever laboratories operate they produce an increasing number of sources of data and information.

“The laboratory is becoming a data platform and customers are interested in how a supplier can bring together information to benefit them,” Hagen says. He is clear about the consequences. Laboratory processes need to change, and digitalisation demands a change in the way people think. The need for automated working processes and digital data acquisition is now accepted, but the Managing Director knows that we are still miles away from achieving a consistent approach. “If digitalisation is going to really become established in the lab, I have to say goodbye to my islands.”

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