Accelerating Process Automation in Research and Manufacturing
We are delighted to welcome AGU to the Tetra Partner Network and to share a recent conversation with Klaus Bruch, CEO, and Co-Founder of AGU. As a leading middleware provider, AGU’s Sm@rtline Data Cockpit® is creating faster time to value and accelerating scientific outcomes from instrument level to enterprise IT.
Briefly, please tell us how you and Harry Voges, Co-Founder of AGU, met and why you decided to create AGU.
Harry and I have roots in the industrial IT environment, where we developed IT products and solutions for the digitalization of processes and workflows in the pharmaceutical industry. We came up with the idea of a modern IT company and successfully created AGU and the Sm@rtline Data Cockpit™. Not only are we business partners, but Harry (my cofounder) and I are also very old friends.
Please provide a brief overview of your company:
AGU was founded in 1992 in Leverkusen, Germany. Our software solutions are distributed worldwide, and we develop our products exclusively "Made in Germany.” Today AGU employs more than 90 people focused on Industrial IT and Process Automation. These areas are complementary, which led to the development of our flagship product, Sm@rtline Data Cockpit®️ (SDC).
SDC is used today by the 25 largest pharmaceutical and BioTech companies in the world.
Please describe in a few sentences the value AGU brings to its customers.
Customers expect a high degree of flexibility and reliability from us when developing new features and innovative solutions for SDC. Our expertise helps customers implement their laboratory digitization activities quickly and effectively. Our project implementation is characterized by a customer-oriented solution and implementation phase. After training, the customer can easily connect devices to SDC by themselves. SDC continues to impress customers because more than ten years of customer experience have gone into the product.
In which areas of the biopharmaceutical pipeline is the Sm@rtline Data Cockpit used?
SDC is a solution for connecting devices in the laboratory environment. Customers from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors use SDC in research, development, and manufacturing.
Bioprocessing is important for discovering effective biologics that can be leveraged in the development of treatments and therapeutics. SDC enables the use of sensors and analyzers to collect, review, and approve results in bioprocessing through purpose-built user interfaces. For example, SDC has a generic user interface for any kind of analyzer that streamlines manufacturing support by allowing automated instructions to be sent to the system and have results transferred back upon analysis.
What kind of results and outcomes do your customers achieve?
With SDC, customers can increase efficiency and automatically transfer the measurement results to other lab informatics systems. Manual tasks are eliminated, time will be saved, and data quality increases significantly. Compliance with FDA GMP requirements is also an important aspect. Customers who go digital in their labs with SDC can process results locally and globally.
Manual tasks are eliminated, time will be saved, and data quality increases significantly.
What are the problems you are most often asked to solve?
SDC solves several problems for customers.
- For IT: We reduce the effort for customers and standardize the instrument interfaces using SDC as middleware. SDC provides IT with robust automation workflows.
- For Users: With SDC we create an integrated solution and reduce the manual intervention of the user. The data quality increases, and the processes become more comprehensible for customers. We also provide users the ability to review and approve results for 21 CFR Part 11 compliance.
- For Management: SDC is an end-to-end solution that can be used locally and globally. With SDC, costs are sustainably reduced through the digitalization of data flow and workflows.
What is the value of membership in the Tetra Partner Network?
With TetraScience, AGU gains a partner that allows our customers to maximize the value of their data and will increase awareness of the SDC product in the market. Together we can provide an end-to-end solution for laboratory automation, bidirectional data integrations, and driving workflow efficiencies. The Tetra Scientific Data Cloud™ ensures all primary scientific data is properly engineered, tagged with metadata, and accessible so our customers can advance their digital lab journey.
Together we can provide an end-to-end solution for laboratory automation, bidirectional data integrations, and driving workflow efficiencies.
Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
The certified interface that AGU and TetraScience build between their systems represents a milestone in the quality of the interface. We look forward to deepening our partnership with TetraScience around an ever-increasing list of joint customers
About Klaus
Klaus Bruch is CEO and co-partner of AGU GmbH. As head of the IT department, he has been responsible for product development as well as the strategic orientation of the Sm@rtLine Data Cockpit for many years. You can reach Klaus Bruch at klaus.bruch@agu.de.