Editorial

Analytical chemistry like most subjects in modern life has a tendency to follow fashions. Gas chromatography, in vogue in the 1960s, was replaced by HPLC as the fashionable technique in the early 70s. Microcomputer applications predominated from the middle to late 70s and now the 80s threatens to be the province of the laboratory robot. However, despite the obvious lessons available to us from the previous introductions ofnew ideas, it would appear that many groups are just jumping on the bandwagon with a view to publishing material without sitting back and carefully reviewing the value ofthese new tools. It seems sensible to me that we should learn what can and cannot be done with robots and then begin to integrate them into analytical laboratories to maximize their potential. Simply mechanizing manual processes using robots offers a solution to hard-pressed managers forced to cut staffing levels and budgets, but the major benefits can only be accrued when a detailed specification ofthe analytical problem is outlined and then the best, most economic solution found to meet that objective. I do not want to discourage the use oflaboratory robots, rather the reverse. Analytical chemists have much to gain from industrial design engineers with skills in the reproduction of robotics. However, these engineers know little if anything ofthe constraints put upon analytical chemists. The chemist, on the other hand, may well have been directed to use a particular analytical methodology for a number of reasons and he may have lost sight of the major objectives simply presenting how the job is actually carried out manually. A period of testing and of desigr specification to the precise requirements can often be useful prior to implementing a robotic approach. In the April 1982 edition of JAC wrote: