Automating pH-triggered temperature control in a dairy lab
How a global dairy company replaced a manual, error-prone pH routine with an experiment that runs itself.
A global dairy company with an innovation center focused on dairy products, sustainable solutions, and changing consumer needs. Its labs cover microbiology, chemical and physical analysis, and fermentation and cultures, and it is digitalizing them as part of a wider smart-lab program.
Objective
The company's smart-lab ambition depended on automating the journey of data from its original source. An internal study of how people source and handle data showed a significant gap at the source of experimental outcomes.
The gap was clearest in the pH systems, both wired and wireless. Every time the pH reached a certain level, a scientist had to step in and trigger the water bath's temperature. The process relied heavily on people and was prone to error.
Solution
Inniti provided the middleware layer to connect the lab instruments directly to the company's internal data system. The Desktop Connector and the Physical Connector work together as one integration layer, so every value from the pH probes is available in the lab system in real time.
With Automate & Control, the experiment is set up beforehand and the system adjusts the water bath temperature based on the data it receives from the pH probes.
- Scientists design the experiment in the Inniti platform by dragging and dropping steps and setting values, with no code
- Wired and wireless pH probes feed the same real-time data layer
- Water bath temperature is controlled from the incoming pH readings, without a person watching
Business impact
- Workflows run without waiting on a person to trigger the next step
- Better data quality, plus time saved on re-runs and on monitoring and controlling the temperature by hand
- Better experiment quality and run time
- Stronger data integrity, with less manual intervention at the point where data is created