David Moore of Lab-tek first saw the need for a new type of vortexer while working as an electronics technician at Christchurch Hospital. He found that there was no device that did a good job of simultaneously shaking a lot of test tube samples – and the machines that did exist were outdated for today’s modern environment.

Because it’s not practical to test all medical samples immediately, most samples get frozen for testing later. To then get a consistent mix after the sample thaws, it must be shaken using something like a vortexer. This process also reduces the manual labour involved if shaking the samples individually.

David Moore began designing his first vortexer in 1998. After hours of challenges at home, working through late nights and long weekends, he secured three immediate sales to Canterbury Health Labs and progressed from there.

Industrial Research became involved when Lab-tek took on a new challenge – A US pharmaceutical company approached Lab-tek after finding no local solution for the type of vortexer they wanted. They had some fairly heavyduty requirements - wanting eleven machines that would each shake up to 96 test tubes at one time and run for up to three days if required.

David Moore says that doing that with an eight kilogram load at 2000 revs without busting is a pretty big ask.

“Thankfully I had the help of Industrial Research to help me pull this together. My fi rst prototype kept on over vibrating and moving across the floor. The team at Industrial Research helped fix that – they went the extra mile to meet my deadline.”

Helping to solve the vibration issue, Industrial Research’s Lan Le-Ngoc says that identifying the problem was one thing but finding a simple solution that didn’t add complexity to the machine was the key.

That’s when you know you’ve struck gold – when you come up with a solution so elegant that the consumer is hardly aware it’s there. No extra cost to the end product is always a plus too and that’s what we were able to achieve.”

With the client very happy with the result, David Moore already has further US business in the pipeline. He’s also overjoyed that a company in Finland have chosen to go with his product.

“Given it’s regarded as the most tech-savvy country in the world – I think it says a lot for what can be achieved in New Zealand. People try and tell you that you can’t do things – and then you do it. You can achieve things.

NEWS - This news entered 2003. Page updated  28th July 2008