Post by Mark Longerbeam

A bench scientist scaling a biotech process shouldn't have to be their own instrument technician. Every few minutes. Sample the column. Dilute by hand. Walk to the bench spectrometer. Log the numbers. Repeat — for every column, every shift, every batch. That's what chromatography-based protein manufacturing looked like before automation. We just changed that for a Maryland-based biologics manufacturer. BME Systems Inc. designed and deployed a fully automated in-line spectral monitoring system: peristaltic pumps handle real-time stream dilution, an ARM-based processor drives a fiber-coupled spectrometer to capture a full absorbance spectrum every few seconds, and a SCADA platform analyzes concentration and wavelength ratios in under 10 milliseconds — wirelessly, continuously, across multiple columns simultaneously. The operators now watch it happen. The system does the work. This project was funded in part by the Maryland Manufacturing 4.0 Grant Program through Maryland Department of Commerce. #BioprocessAutomation #Biomanufacturing #ManufacturingInnovation #Maryland #SCADA Deployed unit — NEMA 4X enclosure housing, Raspberry Pi 5 spectrum processor, Ocean Insight SR6 photodiode spectrometer, and wireless communication hardware.