Largest water supply company in the Netherlands awards contract for the design, manufacture and installation of an automated water analysis laboratory
Vitens, the largest water supply company in the Netherlands, has awarded a contract worth €2m (£1.3m) to Labman Automation for the design, manufacture and installation of an automated water analysis laboratory.
This system will be used to analyse up to 2000 samples a day.
"We have decided to invest in automated laboratory technology in order to raise the speed, improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of potable water sample analysis", said Wouter van Delft, project manager responsible for overseeing the venture on behalf of Vitens. "It will also enable us to make better use of our qualified staff.
"We chose to award the contract to Labman Automation because of their readiness to invest in preliminary development work and their willingness to work with other project partners such as Kiestra, the supplier of the system's microbiological analysis equipment", added Wouter.
"The system will be able to undertake the work of our existing microbiological, analytical and organic chemistry laboratories".
The automated laboratory, which is scheduled to be completed in the early part of 2005, will be housed in a new purpose-built facility located in Leeuwarden.
On arrival during the evening of the day of collection, samples taken from sources supplying Vitens's four million domestic and industrial customers are registered automatically and then chilled and buffered ready for analysis overnight.
They are then conveyed in turn to the appropriate laboratory stations where the sample bottles are opened and analysed.
Labman's scheduling, control and sample information databases populate the Vitens Oracle database with the analytical results in real time. "We have extensive experience in developing automated systems for deployment in laboratories, clean rooms and on production lines for companies operating in a wide spectrum of industries," said Labman Automation's managing director Andrew Whitwell.
"Vitens is one of the first of Europe's leading water companies to have invested in this level of automated laboratory technology, reflecting its commitment to serve the needs of its customers by embracing innovation".
