Pharmaceutical and chemical industry

The racks with milk samples are loaded on the left side of the machine by the operators. The samples are conveyed to the centre, so that the pipette rack prepares the plates for culture.Once the culture samples are taken, the samples are transferred to the right side of the machine, ready to be unloaded..

Both milk samples and culture plates are identified with a barcode. Severar barcode readers were placed to read the data in the barcodes. A computer stores the barcode data in a database and matches them, so that total traceability can be guaranteed in the sampling process

In case of a positive analysis, the software can inmediately track:

• where the original sample is (if a cross-check is required)
• the farm where the sample was produced
• the animal that originated the sample

Decuna delivered to a laboratory as a "key-in-hand" installation an automatic sorting line for milk samples. The project was managed end-to-end, from requirements capture, desing, manufacturing, integration and commissioning, including robot tooling desing and robot integration.

The sorting line is multi-purpose:

• first of all, the samples need to be placed on plastic pucks, so that they can be conveyed
• data acqusition is needed, reading the barcode on every sample and introducing the data in the system
• finally, the samples are grouped by test type, unloaded from the pucks into the racks

The line intregrates different machines that perform operations such as lid opening, injecting preservative and lid closing. The robot installed is able to handle both racks and samples with a special gripper, places the tube samples in the racks and then the racks in a stair, ready to be picked by operators and loaded to the milk testing equipment.