Smart Manager – Have you ever had the feeling you’re on the verge of something big?

Because that’s the feeling I got as we moved closer to launching our Smart Manager solution on the Zetium. To me it felt like the first small step on what I hope is going to be a very long and interesting journey to something big.

Let’s connect

So, what was that first step? Well, with Smart Manager we started to connect our instruments to the cloud. By sending instrument data to the cloud and using Artificial Intelligence, we can provide smarter insights into the usage and status of our products. And this, of course, helps our customers get the most out of their instruments.

The first instrument we are connecting is the Zetium, which is part of my portfolio. The reason we are starting with the Zetium is because of the demanding applications it’s used for. Not only are robust operation and reliable results key, but Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence also has, by its nature, a lot of moving parts. If you put complex mechanics with a need for robust operation, you can understand this is where a tool like Smart Manager can make a big difference to our customers’ daily operations.

Of course, the real test is how our customers look at it. The feedback so far has been great! We reached out to several customers and quickly had several instruments connected as a proof-of-concept. This allowed us to trial our solution and understand how Smart Manager would be used in practice. The close collaboration and feedback have been very valuable and so a big THANK YOU to those customers.

What about safety?

An important area we also looked at with those early adopters was the safety aspect. As we would be connecting instruments to the internet, we designed our solution with safety in mind. There are a few key aspects that help make this solution safe. First, we only send telemetry data related to the instrument. Second, the communication is one-way with data only being sent from the Instrument to the Cloud. And finally, we built this with Microsoft Azure. These choices were well received by our Customers’ IT departments and so they supported us in connecting these instruments.

First but not the last.

We worked closely with our customers on the first version of Smart Manager. And we will be introducing several key updates expected throughout 2021 and 2022. We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with an expanding user base. I hope you understand I cannot write down all those ideas here, but feel free to reach out to me directly to discuss. Or reach out to one of my colleagues via digitalsolutions@malvernpanalytical.com. And make sure to visit www.MalvernPanalytical.com/ConnectedWorld to keep updated on future versions.