Many equipment manufacturers have developed these systems with a variety of architectures. The introduction of robotic fingers for existing industrial arms that are capable of gripping and moving microplates made feasible the integration of modular unit automation. Many systems are now created by professional Integrators whose business is the creation and assembly of systems rather than the manufacture of equipment. A recent innovation has been the introduction of control software capable of scheduling tasks and conducting error recovery. With these packages it is possible to analyze and optimize a process off-line and then make appropriate changes to system hardware.
Error recovery allows a system to continue operation even when subsystems or unit automation fails.
The simplest analysis of the impact of this technology would be to examine the relative outputs from each. Full time Employees required for all facets of the screen including reagent preparation, screen operation, and data reduction and review. The results are counterintuitive. One would expect that a fully automated system would be much more efficient and operate at a higher rate, but the system employing unit automation was considerably faster and both operated at approximately equal efficiencies. A closer examination of the process explains this result.