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Everyone Needs a Trainer… Get yours.

In the ever-evolving world of automation, particularly in biotech and pharma manufacturing, hands-on experience and continuous learning are invaluable. To

ISPE Vendor Night – Lucid Automation in San Francisco

Our engineering team had a great time at ISPE Vendor Night. Not only highlighting the latest technologies, but served as

Elevating Your HMI Designs

Elevating Your HMI Designs to Elite Status with my latest piece on Automation World . Discover the immediately actionable techniques we

ITOT Converge in Standard Server Rack

Our latest PLC install, smartly nestled in a 19″ server rack. The image speaks volumes about Lucid Automation’s commitment to

Leverage Custom Bioreactor Automation

Leverage the long equipment lead times with custom bioreactor automation to streamline your bioreactor processes. Regardless if you’re still in

Process Data Lacking?

Automation gains are often realized on the back end of a project. Having a strategy upfront increases the effectiveness, cost, and

New Equipment: Deciding on Custom vs. Default Automation

You’re specifying new bioreactor equipment. Time to consider automation options: Should you buy the off the shelf automation package or

chatGPT Generated PLC Code

Functional PLC Structured Text Generation Using chatGPT: Yes, it Works Below, I detail how, within a few hours of learning

Non-Obvious Gains Through Automation Strategy

Automation gains are often realized on the back end of a project. Having a strategy upfront increases the effectiveness, cost, and

Lucid Supports “Girls In STEM” at UC Davis

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuADSo-Lu1A/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MjAxZDBhZDhlNA== Big shout out to Marie and Haruka for participating in the STEM For Girls  event at University of California,

Lucid Expands To Novato and Davis California

We’re proud to be expanding our GMP Life Science Automation operations in California. Our second office is up and running

Switching to Single-Use Purification

Switching to Single-Use Down Stream Purification, either Chromatography or Tangential Flow Filtration, is not as straight forward as the marketing

Single-Use Chromatography Data Analytic Upgrades

Life is too short to suffer bad automation. Upgrading off-the-shelf chromatography skids is a cost-effective method to increase productivity and close

Validating GMP AI Models Published on Automation World

Automation World published my article on validating control system ML models. It’s an exciting new area for life science automation,

Wire Label

There is one optimal way to label a wire: length-wise, tight to insulation, and near point of termination. Yet in

Tuning VMs For Industrial Applications

Virtual machines are used at every level because of the value they provide in development, testing, backup, and recovery. But

Trace Matrix Gap

Inevitably, we all run into a documentation gap.  Restarting the workflows to initiate the change, approve, test, and review can

Alarm Management (ISA 18.2) – Automate This! Podcasts

How many nuisance alarms do you have active? Alarm management includes cheap alarms, ISA 18.2, code libraries, and release by

Retrofitting Stratix 5700 into Existing Biotech Skid

Retrofitting an OEM skid with a Stratix 5700. When buying new equipment be sure to specify, at a minimum, an

Bringing Your Design to Life

Do you have a Life Science manufacturing project combining GxP documentation, process control, and data integrity for mixed equipment? Simplify

Release By Exception – Leverage Your Data

The most satisfying report I ever wrote had one, plain-text “COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY, READY FOR RELEASE” line distilled from 5k+ batch

Pi to Pi Historian Transfer

Some tips and performance metrics for a project we just completed replicating a Historian Collective from plant floor securely up

Historical Data and Control Made Easy

Collecting data from small lab equipment and automatic control is harder than it should be. A mix of proprietary software,

Simplify Your GMP Validation with Code Modules

Simplifying Acceptance Testing starts with design docs and software developed with a solid foundation of GMP change control. There are

Recognizing Engineering Excellence – Natalie Rusca

I recall trying my best to warn Natalie during her intern interview that this job is tough… Even tougher in

Automation Internships – Automate This

Should you expose interns to the frustrating side of solving automation problems? Our team discusses the goals of both the

Cobot Podcast – Automate This! Podcast

Behind the scenes look at the Automate This! News development test runs. Podcasting is definitely a skill that needs to

Single-Use Bioreactor Market Growth – Automate This! News

Where do you see the Single-Use Bioreactor growth going? Here’s a highlight from our discussion in this week’s Automate This!

Passwords – Automate This! Podcast

Biometric Passwords and Credential Stuffing in Manufacturing Industry. Life stories used to illustrate https://youtu.be/ILPMlGdNl-4

Credential Stuffing In ITOT – Automate This!

Credential Stuffing is a common attack on the manufacturing floor. The Lucid team discusses what credential stuffing is and some

Mentorship, The John Interview – Automate This! Podcast

The Lucid Automation team sits down with John to discuss mentorship past, present, and future. And the value of a

Chromatography UV Peak Detection

Our Special Projects Intern, Eliott Park, presented his Chromatography UV Peak Detection model using a Keras TensorFlow neural net API.

Considerations in Mounting DIN Rail Inside Datacenter Racks

Automation is moving into the datacenter. It’s cleaner, cooler, and closer to the IT infrastructure. But there are quite a

Suffering from Ambiguous Automation Projects?

Determining where to start is critical; trust us to help get you set on the path to success. We’ll be

S88 Batch Considerations

When designing a set of S88 Batch phases, consider the intended use of the equipment. Expectations for a Process Development

New Year, New Panels

The first panels of the new year are just about ready to ship! Special thanks to Buckles-Smith Electric, Rockwell Automation,

Rockwell Automation Fair in Chicago

Lucid has boots on the ground in Chicago for the Rockwell Automation Fair! Getting some swag ready for the Rockwell

Industrial IT/OT Zero Trust

Manufacturing network boundaries are becoming fuzzy as external business applications requiring trusted access to plant data perforate the once rigid

Industrial NES Controller – Intern Project

Here is a preview of our intern training project under way. Natalie Rusca and Robert Orta made good progress on

PLC to SQL, Why Would I?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/plc-sql-why-would-i-bill-mueller/ There exists a gap between the process historians and ODBC-enabled batch/SCADA services to get PLC tag data into a

GMP Process Solutions

GMP Process Automation is much more that just “Getting it working”, the right experience saves critical time at the end

Prepared To Visualize Your Data – RtReports

RtReports are built to address the needs of Biotech and Pharmaceutical Processes. There are many data visualization solutions out there,

Validating Biotech AI

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oracle-problem-validating-biotech-ai-bill-mueller/ One of my more aspirational career goals has been efficient validation testing. It’s an odd goal, but one those that

Think Twice Before Scanning That QR Code, Cowboy…

As automation and security experts, we’re here about to lay down some serious wisdom about those sneaky little QR codes

Network Regression Testing

Regression testing of network upgrades is sometimes overlooked when swapping out the core or distribution switches of the factory floor.

Remote Access – Is it time to review?

We often work remotely, but sustained heavy use has highlighted minor inefficiencies and gaps in audit trails (like identifying ESXi

Scalable Industrial Network Designs

The network is the base upon which all production equipment and data systems are built. Lucid’s designs are fully documented,