Toby Winchester

Welcome to another episode of Voices of Sample Management.

Today I have a fellow product manager, but not from Titian, this time, from SPT Labtech.

Cory, could you introduce yourself?

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Hi, Toby, good to be here. I'm Cory Tiller from SPT Labtech. I'm a sample management product manager, as Toby said.

Toby Winchester

Okay. And your experience of all things sample management?

Cory Tiller

Fair, fair. I've worked here at SPT Labtech, in this role for a couple of years.

Before that, I worked at a biotech company in the San Francisco area, working on sample management in manual freezers from, kind of, software integration projects as well as, handpicking samples for delivery to, mostly fermentation and test development, internal customers.

So a very internal facing role, not a huge sample library, but that that was my sample management experience mostly.

Toby Winchester

Okay. Okay, cool.

And, you know, that that brings us on to the topic I really wanted to discuss, which was, you know, storage of samples, and the pros and cons of, you know, SPT, of course, sell automated stores.

What's the pros and cons of a manual store versus an auto store?

So maybe we start with manual stores because, historically you have knowledge and Titian definitely has knowledge of these things.

But you know, what are the downsides? What are the good sides?

Cory Tiller

Yeah. I'll probably start with the good side to manual because, yeah, I think it's always a balance, certain libraries, it's plenty cost effective to stay manual.

In my case, in my previous role, we had probably seven or eight manual -80 freezers

that were managed in that group. Didn't quite have the real, sample capacity or needs, in picking to actually move up to an automated store.

So, you know, maybe doing fifty to a hundred sample picks per week in ten to twenty sessions.

So, a lot of kind of digging, but not a whole lot of actual work.

So, it was pretty easy to manage in a smaller team.

So, manual has that ability to be fairly small investment. And certainly areas where labour is cheaper. It's fine to add another person sometimes than to automate

because I know, for all auto stores that the ticket price can be a bit of a justification.

And then the process of kind of that business justification and really getting a store in can take some time, from kind of, ideation all the way through to delivery, installation and acceptance testing and, you know, in your case or in kind of Titian’s case, so, the software element might also add a little bit of time to that as well, whether there's an integration on the back end.

So, it is a bit difficult to stomach for certain customer sizes.

But obviously the downside of manual is kind of the same thing is mentioned. A lot of labour, a lot of hands in freezers, and a kind of a lot of different kind of sample touch points.

So, samples are fairly exposed when during that process we used, we tried to use dry ice, but again, it's a, it's a very open air, very kind of open to the elements process and coming in and out of those freezers, there's heat exchanges and there's different kind of temperature fluctuations, not just to the sample but to the freezer itself.

So, that there's definitely a value there that's, added to the automated process, but it just simply can't be done well enough manually.

Automated, it's all enclosed, doesn't matter which auto store you buy, there's very little temperature fluctuation in that, kind of experience of picking, as opposed to, yeah, manual.

It's a to whole wild West there.

Toby Winchester

Yeah, so it's, I mean, I think I've read a study by SPT, or maybe it was TTP before it was SPT, but it was about, you know, the effect on, the samples, you know, not the sample you are maybe picking, but it's the samples that are surrounding that, you know, what happens when you open the freezer door?

What's the temperature fluctuation of that? Can you go into?

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

So, a couple things, it’s two different parts there.

There's the instance of the samples that we're talking about, kind of, as you mentioned, is the one that are maybe in the store, that are in a rack nearby or in the shelf that gets opened up.

So, they kind of experience a fluctuation of temperature because of that door opening and closing, as well as the samples in the racks. The one, maybe, pulled five racks to be picked, ten samples out of, all those innocent samples that are sitting on dry ice experience kind of a temperature fluctuation, itself.

And just from the picking process.

So, we've done some studies, to kind of show that there's a very different temperature profile in that process for the innocent samples. So, experiencing that, kind of change, can be a big concern to sample integrity.

Obviously, we're not the scientist, so we're not able to kind of show the degradation of the sample over time.

But I know talking to quite a few scientists, that is a real fear.

And I'm sure you have as well in that, it's hard to trust a process that has that much fluctuation in it.

Toby Winchester

Right, so, I mean, what sort of temperatures are you talking about?

You know, if somebody’s, you know, got a rack of -80 tubes or they were -80, you’re picking a tube out of the middle of there, for instance, or even out the side of there, you know, is that a five degree difference, is that a ten?

Cory Tiller

I think the from the rack based difference, you know, it's kind of a different experience for us.

We talked about it in some things as the penguin effect.

But the racks have that, whether they're going in the freezer or out of the freezer, so, rack storage has this insulating quality, from, you know, fellow tubes clustered together.

So, the penguins in the Antarctica has the idea, although it's a bit of a stretch sometimes, but…

Toby Winchester

The other way around.

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Well, yeah. But, the tubes themselves, the outer edge experiences are much different profiles in the inner edge to your point.

So, it's not so much that the temperature doesn't reach, you know, a given time that's understandable, it's that it's maybe 40 minutes behind.

So that out for thawing the outside might be, 40 minutes ahead of schedule, than the inside.

Toby Winchester

Right, yes.

Cory Tiller

And kind of vice versa on storing, you know, getting a freezing profile outside in as well.

So, that sample, I guess, life experience is something very different than the one on the edge of the rack.

And there's really no way to, combat that in rack based storage.

And there really aren't a lot of rackless options out there, so it does make it a very unique feature to rackless storage.

Toby Winchester

Okay. And, yeah, I suppose especially when you're transporting those racks to pick them, whereas potentially an auto store does that all internally -80, -20

whatever.

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Yeah. Depends on the auto store. But yeah most picking is at -20 for auto stores it's just safer for robotics.

But it's, definitely one of those things where, yeah, auto stores at least have mitigated that, quite a bit more than certainly dry ice, as much as we kind of have that, you know, mental, kind of checkbox that these are on dry ice.

It's cold. It'll be fine. It's very different.

Toby Winchester

Yeah. That's, I suppose it's better than not having that dry ice but even then it's still not as good as keeping them safely in the -80, but then never touching them, so why are you keeping the samples, so it's balance, isn’t it?

Cory Tiller

Yeah, well and I think you've probably talked to plenty of scientists.

There are many schools of thought about temperature needs depending on sample type.

So, it's something that we come across quite often, as you know, the customer is always right, when it comes to that sort of thing. So, whatever they tell us they need temperature wise, we, adhere to.

But there are very different schools of thought for, yeah, for instance.

Toby Winchester

Yes, I mean, I was going to suggest that maybe, you know, this is one case where the classic small molecule world, you know, you go from one company to another, they've all chosen different temperatures.

They've all done studies, and they’ve all chosen different temperatures. Whereas the biologics it is more, you freeze those at -20, you freeze those at -80.

It seems to be more stable almost for, you know, what some people would perceive a fresher science.

Cory Tiller

Yes. It's certainly less variability.

And less kind of, I guess older science. And the only big jump is the, the in stores.

But that's a whole different area.

Toby Winchester

Yes and you definitely don’t want to be sticking your hand in one of those.

So, I suppose, yeah, we've done the sort of sample integrity, you know, with a manual so or, but there is a sort of health and safety cost as well.

You know you're talking -80. You've got to be wearing big chunky gloves to pick those tubes.

Cory Tiller

Big chunky gloves are very hard to pick with too.

So, I think hopefully not everyone does this, but I know I opted not to do the big chunky gloves, sometimes, and that's a health and safety risk.

So there's a certain amount of, just cumbersome, well, I guess PPE for, really working in -80, so that health and safety of, kind of going in and out for an individual, it certainly wears on you daily, I think.

And some of the groups you see there, there are, you know, there's not just five freezers, there could be tens and twenties and it can be, a real ordeal, getting in and out of all those, freezers for those samples and, you know, not to even get into ergonomics of picking in freezers and the low shelves and the high shelves and, the weird little carts that you end up sitting at to try to do your picking, so it does become a kind of overall, I guess, yeah, cumbersome process.

And that doesn't even get into kind of tangible benefits around electricity usage and all the other things that that kind of fold in to manual storage.

Toby Winchester 

Yeah, I mean, you all must be listening to one of our previous podcasts, but yeah, it's multiple freezers, it soon ends up at, and it's not just the cost of running the electricity, it's also, you know, how much air conditioning do you need to cope with all the heat coming out of the freezers.

It just sort of rolls on and on, but yeah, so, you know, almost and of course, you need, you know, a way of tracking the samples that you're moving manually in and out as well,

which, you know, wearing a -80 glove and, you know, using post-it notes or something like that, that's not really very compatible.

And even using a mobile phone, for instance, that's, yeah, it's still not that easy to be doing that with that PPE.

Cory Tiller

Yeah, end user usage, it's kind of as you mentioned, the manual process, you might have a scan, you might have a thawing process, you might have a rearraying that pick by hand. Hopefully not.

But sometimes, either with an automated tube handler or a liquid handler, down stream

to kind of rearray to your final format.

The big advantage auto stores, that's all done internally, for you.

So, whatever you need kind of in your rearray or the final layout, the store does for you.

It's a big, big win.

Secondary scanning, double checking of barcode reading is commonplace among auto stores as well.

So, for kind of a Titian folks of the world, there's that kind of double check, that clean data transfer between, the hardware and the process and then the kind of inventory tracking, or even your kind of process based, data tracking,

If you're going end-to-end, on the kind of process, data tracking.

So, there's some really clear values there.

Toby Winchester

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the ones that you just mentioned, which is, yeah, I hadn't even thought about, is that rearraying an auto store will do for you, which means you then don't have another workflow step further down.

So there's even a, you know, a time gain by having an auto store, you're not picking into a rack and then rearranging your rack.

It’s done for you, yeah.

Cory Tiller

Time savings as well as, sometimes, instruments savings.

You know, you don't have to have scanners necessarily at every station, you don't have to have, a cherry picking liquid handler.

You can go straight into stamps, which provides a lot of value because, you see a lot of sample management labs, they have to opt for a workhorse liquid handler because they need the functionality to be able to pick as well as stamp and, some other things as well.

So, it ends up being a little bit more, of an opener for your workflow to be able to kind of opt for the right bit of kit, depending on, what your process is.

Toby Winchester

And then, I suppose the other obvious reason for automating anything,

whether it's liquid handlers or, storage devices is, you know, removing the errors.

You know, error free picking.

You don't pick the wrong chamber, you don't put the wrong sample in the experiment, that sort of thing.

It's almost invaluable.

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Exactly.

Especially, you know, kind of to draw on my previous experience, you're sending samples into fermentation runs to find, high quality, synthetic biology products.

Putting the wrong one in the tank to begin with, certainly, kills any data generated after that. So, and that's, you know, similar across, different areas as well.

So, it’s definitely picking the right sample first time, right?

Getting verification that didn't involve a human's eye is also nice because I know we like the side labeled barcodes or the side label tubes, but it's very prone to error even, and again, unfortunately for us, it's the human element is, is prone to error.

Toby Winchester

It’s the generally the weak link. Yes.

We have our uses, though.

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Yeah. yeah.

Toby Winchester

So, I suppose, you know, what about the, you know, if you've got 100,000 tubes store, you know, what is the, yeah, how does that compare energy usage between, you know, your minus whatever freezers and your, you know, auto store.

Everybody would think an automated system would probably be using tons more energy, but I suspect that may not be the case anymore, especially with the world trying to go greener and greener.

Cory Tiller

Yeah. it's a good question.

I think, well, I'll start by essentially, manual freezers have come a long way.

I will give them credit.

They were not, well, they've put in a lot of energy into them, development wise.

So, they're not quite as clunky and energy inefficient as they used to be, however, automated storage usually means combining multiple stores into one footprint.

So, for our stores or for similar ones, there might be, a combining factor. So, you know, two manual stores end up going into one automated storage because of kind of the way, they're neatly, packaged in that capacity, for the footprint, which is one win, which is less energy usage.

And then because the doors don't open, there's actually, to your point, there is less energy used in the process and might be more for the picking and everything like that. But, overall over maybe a ten year period, you're looking at pretty significant energy savings and maybe not for every customer. Is the upfront investment worth that?

And it really from our experience comes down to kind of how often you're going into those freezers, how many picking sessions, how many samples that you need to pick, because if it's truly a freezer farm where samples sit mostly, for their life cycle because they're archival or whatever it might be, that it's not the best use of an automated store, but, yeah, definitely, the driver in that market is how often you need to use, samples or go in because that that adds up very quickly, that temperature and that labour cost as well.

Toby Winchester

Yeah. So rapid project work maybe auto store, legacy. You know, we need to keep this

in case the FDA because question.

Cory Tiller

Right, yeah, perfect example.

We have to keep this and we don't have a choice, yeah, and I think we have seen

hybrid models as well, where you use some manual storage for kind of longer term or master stocks.

You use your auto store for working samples and you replenish as needed from the manual picking because they don't need to go in and very often or they just pull a whole rack, which is much easier than individual samples.

It can work either way, and then there have been kind of some really big wins.

We've also seen auto store, large and smaller, hybrid models where they've done something similar with different sizes of automated storage as well.

Toby Winchester

So, is that, you know, I suppose we're heading, you know, with support sort of being skirting around that return on investment, you know, justifying an auto store.

Is there anything else that needs to be thought about, maybe by a potential customer to justify it to their management?

Cory Tiller

Yeah. I think, sample integrity is a big win.

We talked about sample integrity, data integrity, kind of electricity - those are the big three, I'd say.

The other ones that kind of fold in there's the scalability angle, kind of scaling with the business, in the right way.

So, kind of the right upfront investment with, the right business model for your scaling capacity as well as, we kind of touched on it, but just the simple cost of lab footprint right now.

So, lab space is at a premium, particularly in certain regions, more so than others. The coasts, for instance on the US, I'm sure European lab space is not cheap.

So, it really does become a way to justify that storage option in a really clean way.

And, as we've always mentioned about labour costs, and things like that, it's not simply having less people. It's being able to kind of empower your science, to allow people to do something more useful with their time, because most people I think the vast majority, it's a short term job working, picking, tubes.

It's not quite, as well, certainly not what you imagined at the beginning of the day, usually.

Toby Winchester

Hence you're working for SPT again.

Cory Tiller

Yeah, yeah, certainly.

Toby Winchester

Case in point. Yeah, and I suppose, you know, there is also that thing, you know, when you scale up, you almost hinted, you can get another person in quite easily

Yeah, again, the two coasts in America it's probably not that easy to get a new scientist into pick tubes, so yeah.

As far as I'm aware, autonomous mobile robots still haven't quite got to opening -80 freezer doors and going in, I haven't seen that one yet anyway, so maybe, not quite, maybe it’ll come!

Cory Tiller

Yeah, yeah, they're not quite cheap yet either, so, we'll see how that starts

Toby Winchester

Will it ever get to be like flat screen TV.

Cory Tiller

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Toby Winchester

Okay, but yeah probably not. Probably not in our industry there's not enough throughput, is there?

It’s not likely.

Cory Tiller

No, no. Yeah, the unit numbers are just not there to be able to make that consumer automation price.

Toby Winchester

Okay. Cool. Is there anything else you think we should bring up about, yeah, why buy an auto store or why don't buy an auto store?

Cory Tiller

I think, again, really, it's case by case investment, but, nothing in particular.

I think it really, seeing the value of the data tracking in sample tracking across, the kind of larger companies in the scaling companies, whether it's large pharma or kind of the entrenched biotech.

They've invested in automation for a reason, that consistency of experimental process as well as the just true value of the data that's output.

So, it's not just, the correct data, it's more data.

So, you get more to work with, more to, maybe, mine if you're using some of machine

learning or AI techniques.

It provides a lot of value to those customers as well.

Toby Winchester

Okay, thank you very much, Cory, thank you for your time. And thank you for listening, everybody. Look forward to seeing you again on the next podcast, cheers.

Cory Tiller

Thank you, thanks, Toby!