Game changing software for Analytical Instruments: Real impact in a $100bn pa market.

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Analytical laboratories (Labs) test samples to determine what is in them. A wide range ofsophisticated Intelligent Instruments do this work. It is ~ $100bn pa global market.Instruments (typical cost £30k-100k) are controlled by proprietary software running onattached, dedicated PCs. There are millions of such systems globally. They produce numericalresults (e.g. Zinc concentration is 4.6). Usually automated, each generates hundreds/thousandsof results/day. Depending on what is being measured, they use different techniques (e.g.spectroscopy) by which the market is segmented.Instrument software is effective at generating results, but it is not optimized for maximumoperational efficiency in the Lab environment.Through leading edge technical innovation, critical use of what are known as software agents(collections of autonomous software systems that collaborate to perform some task), 30 yearsof global domain expertise and a novel approach, we will maximize instrument efficiency.This proposal is for the creation of radically designed, prototype software, Instrument PCEssentials (IPCE), that will:• Get a new instrument into service faster with higher ongoing availability andthroughput• Produce results at dramatically lower costs, with better quality and get them to theLab’s customers quickerThe aim is for Vendors to ship IPCE preinstalled on instrument PCs. So the software must:• Be of low enough cost to effect minimally the end user instrument price• Work “straight out of the box”• Be so compelling in its benefits to Lab users, that it shifts the competitive balancetowards instruments that use itSavings from using IPCE are such that for most it would:• pay for itself AND the instrument in its lifetime• provide highly significant quality, speed and usability benefitsIPCE technology will shift the competitive landscape for Vendors through providing hugeadvantages to their users. It will be disruptive in a $100bn p.a. marketplace.