Grifols Engineering and Viastore Systems, Inc. to design an automated system for the classification and control of plasma samples

02/04/2010

Grifols Engineering, in collaboration with Viastore, a leading automated material handling solutions provider, is to design an automated system for the classification of plasma samples to be installed at the country’s central laboratory in San Marcos, Texas (USA).

For Grifols, the safety of its products takes absolute priority, and it therefore applies a range of measures throughout the plasma process, from collection through to manufacture of the various plasma derivatives. It is essential that the analysis of samples of donated plasma guarantees the safety and quality of all classified plasma. To achieve this, there must be full and accurate information for each plasma sample. Automating this procedure is one means of ensuring the quality of the plasma. For this project, it was essential that we found a partner with experience of delivering materials handling solutions designed for refrigerated maintenance environments at very low temperatures (-34ºC).

The solution, designed jointly by Grifols Engineering and Viastore, includes a one aisle, double deep, mini-load system, 55 metres of Viastore manufactured Powered Roller Conveyor (PRC), a zone tracking control system and viad@tWMS and MFC for traceability, and 5 operator stations for incoming case processing.

“We are confident that, with Viastore as a partner, Grifols will be able to achieve the goal of receiving, sorting and tracking 30,000 to 60,000 plasma samples daily. The margin of error is zero. Sandy Paredes, Director of Plasma Testing Operations at Grifols central laboratory in the USA, explains that, “Control and testing plasma samples is one of the primary quality control objectives at the Plasma Testing Laboratory.”