Gleb Konotop, Head of Automation (Development Sciences, Global R&D) at Abbvie Deutschland GmbH & Co.KG and Abbvie Inc.
The centralized laboratory automation team at AbbVie supports a broad spectrum of R&D laboratories across the global product development landscape. One focus area is the regulated bioanalysis high-throughput laboratory, where step-by-step automation of complex processes has led to substantial productivity gains over the past decade. Segmenting the process into dedicated automation islands or workcells has been pivotal for productivity increase. Furthermore, this approach offered higher programming flexibility, implementation of sophisticated error handling, and enabled modular laboratory setups, while ensuring regulatory compliance. In preparation for a move to a new laboratory facility in 2027 and to challenge the status quo toward full end-to-end automation, we developed a novel order-based strategy for orchestrating of multiple stand-alone islands, aiming to build a future-proof modular laboratory that can quickly adapt to evolving requirements and rapid technological advances. To test this strategy in a real-world scenario, we established the Sandbox Lab. This laboratory acts as a proof-of-concept playground, mimicking the regulatory bioanalysis laboratory, where we integrate multiple vendor systems with custom solutions and test both data transfer and different plate logistics options—such as mobile robots and rovers. This approach enabled seamless connectivity between different systems, independent of traditional orchestration software or scheduler, and remains fully agnostic to system type or vendor.