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| Beyond Software Solution for Clinical Lab |
Equipment and Devices |
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| Project Profile |
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Project: Clinical Chemistry Analyser Software Platform
Industry: Medical instruments, Clinical chemistry
Business area: Industrial software |
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Year/Duration: 2004 - 2007 / 36 months
Resources: Team of 4 programmers and project manager
Technology: Borland® Delphi programming language, XML |
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| "By standardizing on EXECOM's proposed new software platform, Vital Scientific
is uniting its R&D and sales operations to rapidly identify and respond to time-critical customer needs and to
create an even better market position through superior service." |
| Emile Hugen, Managing Director, Vital Scientific |
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 Client
Vital Scientific is a leading manufacturer and distributor of clinical laboratory instrumentation for
in-vitro diagnostic applications. The company, based in The Netherlands, has over 45 years of expertise
in the development and production of automated and semi-automated analyzers marketed world-wide under the
well-known Vitalab® label. A number of reputable companies also offer Vital instruments on OEM basis.
Project overview
Vital’s product Clinical Chemistry Analyser used software platform that was becoming more and more difficult
to maintain and develop. Therefore, the core idea of project to be realized was to create completely new software,
which would be used on a whole family of analysers - “Same code running all analysers”.
Project was initiated because of great demand for advanced software functionalities, faster development of new
analysers, easier maintenance of current analysers, and improved development of custom versions for OEM customers.
To fulfil all these requirements new software had to be written from scratch.
The first version that was put in use was released in 2005. Once the requests were accomplished, nine different
software versions were implemented. At that point Vital’s Managing Director said: “We now have a world
class, customer-focused localized solution which allows us to increase customer satisfaction.”
However, that development phase didn’t represent project end. It was just the beginning. The platform was
still about to gain new features and evolve to a higher level of usage.
During years of development, the basic philosophy remained the same. One engine serves the whole family of
instruments, having different features developed for each type of analyser. The most valuable characteristic of
the platform is that it is easy to maintain and evolve. Naturally, it had to be very reliable, so its solidity is
the core software trait.
For it has a very deep appliance, software had to be intensively tested during the development, verified and
validated to be able to meet all medical instruments strict regulations. For the same reason, all project steps
had to be well documented and procedures defined by ISO standard had to be followed.
Today, along with further development of software features, EXECOM‘s experts maintain existent
platform versions.
Execom solution
EXECOM was selected by Vital Scientific as their long-term partner to collaborate in the design and development
of the new software platform because of its expertise in this domain. Together with well defined and recognised
software development methodology, it was the right precondition for this partnership to succeed and the best way
to overcome cost and time constraints.
Development of completely new analyser software required an experienced team of experts, software engineers
and analyser experts. After four years of software development for clinical analysers, EXECOM had a team that
was able to develop this kind of solution.
New software platform represents system developed on observer pattern basis. It is a custom made, object-oriented
programme made out of components that communicate using internal messages. These components have the ability to form
software solutions for different instruments which is seen through various GUIs.
The software platform is divided into 2 main layers. Engine layer encapsulate all data needed for running of
instruments. Data is stored into separately developed flat file object oriented database, so no external data
base installation is needed.
GUI layer enables correspondence with specific instrument types, providing easy, real time accurate and native
instrument handling.
Engine layer and GUI layer are communicating strictly through interface named data manipulators. Manipulators are
collecting all data inputs, contain most of application logic and trigger events as responds for GUI layer on every
engine data change that should be handled in GUI layer. This approach ensures minimal maintenance time especially
when there are 9 different versions of software to be maintained.
After two years of constant development and software appliance, number of software developers has decreased to
2 programmers and 2 testers. Also, delivery time has lessened, but the experience has reached a great level.
Having an experienced team has reduced the need for regular visits to client’s sight and has shortened
development time, improved information exchange and data acquiring, which all incremented customers confidence
and lowered the costs.
Benefits
EXECOM worked in close collaboration with client's management and in-house
technical resources and over the time became strong partner that Vital Scientific can relay on
Having worked together, two companies have received the following benefits:
- Irreplaceable experience in medical instruments software development;
- Improved software quality and reliability;
- Access to highly skilled and trained pool of employees;
- Fast sharing of the latest technology;
- Frequent project presentations;
- Successful knowledge transfer: enhanced ability to respond to opportunities, better customer service,
and lower transaction costs;
- Hiring and training onsite would have slowed the R&D time by 3-4 times.
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