Automated XY Stage System Preventing Shattered Glass and Inaccurate Data

A pharmaceutical customer came to us with what they thought was a simple, low force, compression testing procedure that they wanted to automate to keep pace with increasing product testing demands.

What we found was an unreliable testing procedure that was time consuming, all manual, and completely operator dependent. The operator pulled a lever to set the applied force and manually record data. If the lever was pulled too quickly, the product would shatter and any obtained data was rendered useless (not to mention the safety hazard of cleaning up the broken pieces, including glass and potentially dangerous liquid).

We had a better solution that would not only be operator independent but also would allow more product testing in less time, leaving operators more time to perform other valuable tasks. The Automated XY Stage System provided the customer a reliable, repeatable, and safe way to test their product, complete with a product containment fixture that made the system easy to load. The solution resulted in increased efficiency and less wasted product. The customer was able to produce a better product due to a reliable testing procedure and more data in a shorter amount of time.

Now, an operator only needs to load a fixture, enter a few fields into the software, and press "run". While the system runs, the operator is free to walk away and address other needs.