Sanquin, the non-profit organization responsible for blood services in the Netherlands, aims to automate the processing of certain blood products through a robotic installation. This will lead to improvements in both efficiency and quality.

Based on a requirements program, a European tender procedure was conducted. A supplier was selected to carry out this innovation project. In the first phase, the contractual documents—which had been shared in outline form during the tender—were finalized. Additionally, this phase included setting up a project organization, involving staff from various departments, developing a solid project plan, and organizing a steering committee.

After awarding the contract and during the first phase of implementation, the user requirements were refined in collaboration with the supplier. This enabled the supplier to produce a functional specification detailing exactly how the robotic installation would operate.

The robotic installation is a novelty: as far as is known, there is no other system in the world that performs these specific tasks. The robot will communicate in a validated manner with pharmaceutical information systems.

By organizing a broad project team with many internal users, thoroughly documenting and executing the project process, and aligning the machine requirements in detail, a well-functioning project has been realized.