Background

Cell therapy manufacturing is a complex, multi-step process that takes place at various locations. But in general, cell therapy labs show an overall low level of automation throughout all regions.

This device is first of its kind to automate the final steps of cell and gene therapy manufacturing process, while help facilitate cGMP compliance. It is a functionally closed system for cells that automates mixing, cooling, air removal, aliquoting and sealing.

Process

The operator has to follow the guided on-screen instructions to load the tubing set, enter processing data, customize parameters, connect the material to the tubing set, and perform and troubleshoot the procedure on the device.

Design

UX function at Terumo was relatively new in the R&D wing a few years ago. We defined ux approach to projects and communicated it to product teams. We also maintain a TFS Board for transparancy and visibility to our engagement within Terumo.

ux process

UX ownership with responsiblities in overall project execution

Theme selection
Terumo’s Dark UI Theme is high contrast and industrial looking that follows best practices on creating a highly-visible and efficient interface. The GUI compliments device’s black display housing. This creates a familiar and consistent user experience pulling inspiration from other laboratory and medical device UIs.

Wireframe to Design
From initial ideations to designs for production, the user interface evolved quite a lot. This is mostly due to field study insights from service engineers and formative testing sessions.

A workflow sample showing transition from simple wireframes to subsequent refinements in design

Localization
Terumo’s localization and tech-comm team has defined best practices for GUIs. They also review all UI designs to ensure strings can scale well, word-wrap, and convey right meaning in different languages.

Close collaboration with L10n team made sure we fixed issues around strings or expansion

Proposed Library
Due to its robustness, official library for Angular, a non-proprietary industry standard was used for front-end development.

Angular material provides components, transitions, grid system, and allows for robust theming.

This approach worked for project but few months later for another graphically demanding project, we found out that Chromium on device is not as robust as desktop or mobile experience.

As of 2020 team shifted its focus to Qt Framework for GUI instead, which gives a compiled application to deploy and provides smoother experience.

Product demo

This product shipped last year to select customers and in early 2020, version 2.1 was released.

first of its kind device to automate final formulation and fill and finish for cell therapy manufacturing