The Value Proposition of Automation

Automation is not a new concept. However, while is has been widely adopted in other industries, chemistry has largely stayed behind. The reasons for this are interesting and worth exploring in another post but for now, let’s look at the value proposition of automation in chemistry.

In general, automation reduces costs, increases project speed and ensures reproducibility.

The exact value proposition, however, depends on the specific automation solution.

Lower costs

Automation is cheaper than manual execution. It allows you to cut costs, increase profit margins, and upskill your chemists to fundamental research tasks, increasing the value added per employee, thus the value of the business.

Machines are great at doing the same thing over and over again, providing a reproducibility guarantee. Even if you have a high manual execution reproducibility rate of let’s say 95% success (really well done, that’s significantly higher than market average!), a reaction can still be reduced in cost by 50% when automated.

Productivity boost

Automation can increase throughput by running 24/7 while being accurate and precise.

A machine that works 24/7 can produce a minimum of 8760 hours of lab work a year and depending on the solution, produce hundreds to thousands of reactions.

Our customers told us that on average, a chemist spends about 903 hours a year in the lab, carrying out research or manufacture, and produces on average 5 reactions a week.

This results in a minimum 24x productivity uplift, returning a 50x upskill multiplier for the chemist, in terms of time invested vs work and data produced in return.

Productivity in the chemical sector is nowhere near where it could be. For example, here in the UK, this has even been noted in the Government’s Industrial Strategy Whitepaper. However, it would be unreasonable to expect it to be as high as other industries that already adopted automation.

Upskilling chemists means higher value added employees

While there are many values that come with automation, some of which we explored above, we believe that the highest value of automation is in upskilling of personnel. Upskilled personnel are not only happier, more productive and more loyal (reducing recruitment and onboarding costs), but also add more value to your business.

No matter what you’re currently working on, research or manufacture, according to our market study, your chemists are spending 50% or more of their time carrying out repetitive laboratory tasks. Do you really need a PhD in Chemistry to setup another reaction or carry out another filtration? Upskilling highly trained personnel to fundamental research tasks which involve their intelligence rather than “hands in the lab” execution, significantly increases the value added per employee and hence the value of the business.

Automation systems should support chemists, preparing materials and executing work for them, even out of hours. For example, making starting materials and intermediates ready for them when they are back, making libraries, carrying out DoE and other optimisation work, scale-up studies and even direct research to lighten the practical load as they strategize next steps.

Increased Speed and Project Success Chance

Speed is not just money, it’s also increased project success chance. Not only do you complete a project faster (and go to market faster and utilise patents longer) but you can also run significantly more experiments in that time, increasing your chances of success.

Lower chemical waste

Automation often reduces chemical waste, especially when tied to reproducibility. Instead of repeating a reaction a couple of times to get it right, machines only need to perform it once, allowing you to focus your resources on improving and understanding the chemistry.

Benefits of automated labs

There are many future benefits that are not instantly obvious while automation is not commonplace.

One such benefit is that automation requires a different infrastructure that is significantly cheaper than manual labour infrastructure. For example, one of the most expensive parts of running a manual chemistry lab is the air extraction of the room and the fumehoods. However, fully sealed and ventilated machines do not require room extraction or laboratory infrastructure. One could easily have them in a cheaper industrial estate, lowering rent and other infrastructure requirements like space. Machines can be stacked and extracted specifically, reducing costs.

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Drawbacks of automation

If you are concerned about automation reducing jobs, we do not believe that will be the case overall. Some, small businesses, might choose to survive during difficult financial times by employing automation to cut costs, but humans will always be required in research. As it is widely known, there is a general lack of STEM employees and according to a study in 2023, by the Eurobarometer, there is specifically, a lack of R&D experts and lab-workers. Automation can be the solution here, offering lab-work and upskilling chemists to R&D experts. Chemists want to be scientists after all, not hands in the lab!

We will explore the shortage of STEM employees in another post however, it is worth noting that we believe that one of the many reasons (but not the only) for this is the low salaries offered in the field. Automation could offer a partial solution here too, as it has increased salaries in other markets, due to employees being upskilled and carrying out higher value tasks.

Do you know anyone who left chemistry for the software or finance sector?

This was a very quick and summarised overview of the value proposition of automation. Of course, there are a lot of other, solution specific, values which have not been explored here. In our case, for example, CheMastery’s system offers integration to workflow, scale-up, DoE, capture of skill and knowledge and a lot more.

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If you are interested to dive a little deeper or want to understand the formulas and where some of these numbers come from, contact us for our free Return on Automation Investment calculator or talk to us about your needs.

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