Original article: LINK

Author: The Silicon Review

“The Digital Divide extends beyond individuals to industries. While modern tech has revolutionized many sectors, crucial areas like water and food safety testing remain hindered by outdated software. Our mission is to bridge this gap with trusted data powered by science.”

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In the world of automated lab management and actionable data, one company stands out for its commitment to quality and integrity: Confience. Born from the union of two seasoned teams, Accelerated Technology Laboratories and Quality Systems International, Confience brings decades of experience to the table. The company is on a mission to revolutionize lab management and empower quality managers with tools they can trust.

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Confience isn't just about delivering a product; it's about delivering an experience. With a focus on quality, transparency, integrity, and empathy, Confience ensures that every interaction, every decision, is guided by these core values. In an exclusive interview with The Silicon Review, Patrick Quinlan, CEO of Confience, shared insights on how his company is delivering an all-encompassing platform for Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS).

‍Interview Highlights

What were the primary motivations behind the decision for ATL and QSI to unite and establish Confience, particularly considering their shared focus on quality and customer service in LIMS?

Our primary motivation for uniting ATL and QSI was to create a global leader in Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). By combining our strengths, we aimed to deliver modern SaaS software solutions with proactive, high-touch customer service, meeting the evolving needs of our customers. How does Confience differentiate itself in the market for automated lab management systems, building upon the legacies of ATL and QSI?  

We have three product commitments we're making to the marketplace:  

1. Automation: Our aim is to solve tedious manual data entry tasks, automating chain of custody and reporting processes. This allows lab and quality managers to focus their time and attention on the work that truly matters.

2. Intuitive user experience: Whether you're in the lab or in the field, customers can easily sort information, generate reports, and configure dashboards and workflows so that the needed information is available instantly.

3. The combination of these two commitments ensures that more work is accomplished within the software, resulting in the delivery of Trusted Data

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"Accuracy, precision, compliance, and efficiency are paramount to the success of our customers' lab and quality teams, and they are central to the design of our products."  

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In what ways does the formation of Confience represent a strategic alignment of expertise and resources to address the evolving needs of quality managers seeking actionable data in laboratory management?

In the ever-evolving landscape of laboratory management, the Confience Data Platform is setting new standards for efficiency, accuracy, and innovation in scientific research and public health monitoring. This cutting-edge platform offers unprecedented capabilities for laboratories and water districts, enabling them to streamline operations and enhance data- driven decision-making processes. Through advanced features like real-time analytics, automated workflows, and comprehensive trend analysis, labs are equipped to significantly reduce turnaround times, improve test accuracy, and optimize resource utilization. Moreover, the platform facilitates robust benchmarking, allowing labs to measure their performance against industry standards and identify areas for improvement. Customers can tap into insights and trends around lab productivity, seasonal variations in quality testing, emerging contaminants detection, and correlations of factors and test outcomes. Perhaps most importantly, by harnessing the power of cloud technology, this LIMS platform ensures data security, scalability, and accessibility, empowering scientists and managers to collaborate more effectively and respond swiftly to environmental and public health challenges.  

Could you provide us with one or two success stories, detailing specific client challenges and how Confience’s solutions contributed to their success?

Recently, we worked with two of our customers: a large Municipal Water District providing sewer and Reclamation services to one of the largest cities in North America, and a small local lab offering similar services. In both cases, we discovered that technicians collecting water samples outdoors were still using pen and paper to record results, a challenging task during rainy and cold winter months. Technicians expressed their desire to electronically track information on an e-pad. This digital gap not only caused discomfort for the technicians but also inevitably affected the quality of the data used by the lab for decision-making. With mobile sample collection capabilities integrated into our products, technicians can now work in inclement weather conditions while keeping their gloves on as they track samples, thereby enhancing the quality of the collected data.  

What can you tell us about the Confience team? How do they bring value to the company?

Our global team of Confientists possesses two enduring traits that form the foundation of the success we are building. First, they have deep experience in the industry verticals we focus on: Environmental, Food & Beverage, and Manufacturing. Second, they are passionate about our customers' success. Our values— Empathy, Transparency, Quality, and Integrity—bind us together to deliver trusted outcomes powered by science.  

Will Confience be expanding, bringing on any new products or services that we should be aware of?

We will launch an Insights Data Platform later this year that provides:  

1. Lab productivity reporting to gain insights across sites about test velocity, lab processing, equipment utilization monitoring, and more.

2. Benchmarking to understand how your labs rank in various categories, including test accuracy and repeatability, turnaround time comparisons, and costs per test.  

3. Trend analysis to track data over time in seasonal variations of quality testing, emerging contaminants detection, and correlations between environmental factors and various test outcomes.  

4. A secure, performant, and scalable platform supported by best practice architecture standards to ensure that the Confience Data Platform grows with our customers' analytical needs.  

Is there anything you would like to add before we wrap up?

The Digital Divide refers to the gap between individuals, groups, or organizations that can access modern technology and those left behind. For everyday people, this may manifest as a lack of access to high-speed internet in rural areas or a lack of digital literacy. However, the Digital Divide can also exist between industries.

Today, modern technologies such as generative AI, data software, and cloud computing have transformed industries from sales to cybersecurity. However, some sectors, such as the software behind testing and ensuring the safety of our water, food, and products, rely on woefully outdated software. The majority of today's Laboratory Information Management Software (LIMS) vendors were not initially built as software-first companies and have remained virtually untouched by digital transformation. Many began as professional services providers, and as modern software automated and streamlined operations for entire industries, LIMS systems lagged behind. The Digital Divide is particularly pronounced in this space. As a result, lab teams' day-to-day work becomes more challenging, and organizations are left more vulnerable to risks without the use of reliable software and reporting solutions. Our mission is to bring trusted data powered by science so our customers can bridge this digital divide.