The ‘lean’ laboratory is one of the buzz phrases in the management of quality control functions inside many healthcare and pharmaceutical facilities.
The “lean labs” approach “focuses on cost control, improving sample throughput, and reviewing whether each sample tested adds value or produces meaningful information.”
One example of how this is used is the application of digital, automated colony counters. Colony counting is the mainstay of many microbiology laboratories. For many large laboratories hundreds to thousands of units require counting each day, after incubation. This is not only repetitious (and arguably a waste of time for employed graduate scientists) it can lead to errors and thus problems of data integrity. In low count assays minor counting errors will have significant effects.
The colony counting process can, however, be automated with digital capture and counting of colonies and there are several big players in this emerging market. Examples include bioMerieux’s EasyCount 2 – EC2 and the ProtoCOL automated counter series. In addition, there is the Whitley aCOLyte (Synbiosis, Cambridge, UK) and the AID BacSpot (AID, Strassberg, Germany).
In terms of functionality, automated colony counters offer:
Standardized and accurate results. Accuracy is important since colony counting can be affected by numerous parameters related to the physical properties of the colony: size, shape, contrast, and overlapping colonies. To achieve this requires automatic colony separation (for when colonies are positioned close to each other).
Ability to count colonies within appropriate parameters (such down to 50 microns and measure zones accurately to 0.5 millimeters, within detection limits of 0.1 millimeters).
Ability to visualize white light and fluorescent colonies.
The ability to count the entire plate or sectors of the plate.
Results obtained within one second per plate.
The display of real-time full-color on-screen images.
Zoom function for looking at smaller colonies.
Software to allow for data collection and analysis. Data should ideally be transferrable to a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).
Many pharmaceutical companies have successfully implemented automatic colony counters, such as Evans Vanodine and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
At Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, the laboratory said digitalization had addressed “errors introduced during the manual counting process and recording of information” as well as leading to a “significant reduction in time taken to analyze colony counting data.”
