Patent ID: 8038941

Claim:
An analytical analyzer adapted for automatically conducting a number of clinical assays on patient samples in reaction cuvettes, said analyzer comprising: a reaction carousel supporting a cuvette carousel having cuvette ports adapted to receive a plurality of reaction cuvettes suitable for conducting clinical assays therein, wherein each and every cuvette port is returned to an original starting position in said carousel in a full operational cycle time of the carousel; first, second, and third reagent servers inventorying reagents required for performing said clinical assays; and analyzer control means configured for partitioning the different assays to be conducted by the analyzer into (i) a first sub-group of assays consisting only of those assays having the highest frequency of being conducted by the analyzer; (ii) a third sub-group of assays consisting only of those assays having the lowest frequency of being conducted by the analyzer, and (iii) a second sub-group of assays consisting only of those assays not contained in either the first or third sub-groups of assays, wherein the third reagent server contains reagents needed for conducting the first, second, and third sub-groups of assays, the second reagent server consists only of those reagents needed for conducting the first and second sub-groups of assays, and the first reagent server consists only of those reagents needed for conducting the first sub-group of assays.