Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (MTD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. So I hope everybody can see and hear us right now. I think we fixed that small technical problem. We did have a small echo on our side, but I think it should be fine at the moment. So I hope you see the full screen of myself and my colleague, Kevin, here. If you don't, please right click on your screen, on your video feed and then select fit to frame. That will allow you to get the full picture frame of what we are about to show you. Okay. Very good. So I see most people have joined. So thank you for joining our webinar. Our topic for today will be a seamless data flow for HPLC workflows, and this here is a joint webinar by Mettler-Toledo and Agilent Technologies, which is why I'm not standing alone here. I'm here with Kevin from Agilent, and we will conduct this webinar together. My name is Andrea Brütsch. I'm a product manager at Mettler-Toledo, here in Switzerland in the headquarters of Mettler-Toledo, and I am responsible for lab automation in our weighing solutions business. And for us, automation not only means robotics and process automation, but of course, also digitalization and automation through software, which is going to be the core of our webinar and demo today. Kevin?

Thanks, Andrea. So my name is Kevin Kölliker. I'm the [ EMEA ] application engineer for lab informatics for Agilent. And yes, thank you very much for letting me be part of this webinar today.

Yes. Very nice. So as we said, our focus today will be sample and standard preparation for chromatography and specifically in that workflow, the digitalization and data management within that process. So this is a very new solution that we're presenting here today. And as I said, it's not only a Mettler-Toledo or an Agilent solution, but it is a joint solution. For the full workflow from beginning, the sample preparation or standard preparation on a balance to having those samples analyzed on HPLC. So the workflow we're looking at will start on our Mettler-Toledo balances. Now these balances will be connected to our LabX PC software that is capturing all the data created during the sample prep process and automatically transferring the relevant data to the Agilent OpenLab CDS. And this data can then be automatically used to create calibration curves within the CES for your analysis. But before we go into detail of the solution and before we go to the live demo of that solution, we want to start with why did we look into this workflow and why do we think it is exceptionally needed to digitalize this workflow to help reduce errors.

Exactly. So what we learned from our customer is that more than 65% of all quality and investigations are due to errors during the sample prep or during the weighing process. And even if they are okay, even if there was no error on the sample prep or the weighing itself, you still need to transfer this data into your data systems or into your CDS. And also during that process, during the transcription of the data from your weighing paper or transcription of the dilution calculations you did during -- within your to lab notebook, also there, it can happen errors because we're all human and that stuff just happens every day -- not every day, hopefully, but yes, it can happen some days. And for this, what also needs to be considered is the time that you need to check -- to do 4 eye check of your transcriptions within the CDS later on. And this what we learned can consume up to 25% of someone's day.

Yes. So in the next -- let's look a little bit closer into this sample prep and data management process for chromatography. So as you probably all know, at least the ones working in a lab, it can be quite a tedious process, and we've just seen with lots of our customers, it is also an area where many errors could happen as Kevin just told before. So this process usually starts at a balance because very often, the samples or the calibration standards need to be weighed in. And in most cases, this is a powder that can be easily dispensed onto a balance. But weighing in small amounts of maybe a statically charged powder is not without its challenges, especially to hit an exact target that you need to weigh in. Of course, documentation of all that weighing is also a key part of it. So you'll see in the next slide, it's usually very paper-based and a lot of weight documentation is needed. Then to prepare a solution, of course, you need to add solvents, and this is most commonly done with volumetric flasks. So you transfer your sample into the flask, also something where you might lose a little bit of your valuable standard. And then you top up that volumetric flask up to the [ meniscus ] line, which, again, is something that could be challenging for a maybe not so experienced lab user, how you look at the volumetric flask and measure the line where you fill up your solvent. And then, of course, since you're now creating solutions or even do dilutions, you have to do calculations. Because your concentration or the target concentration you want to reach might change depending on how you dilute your standard. And this is very commonly done, either in an Excel sheet, a simple one or on paper with a calculator with manual documentation. Of course, that poses a risk for potential errors. And then the next step is when you move away from your balance or move away from your preparation system and you go into the analysis. And that usually means maybe you go to a different lab, you go to a different instrument, but it also often means you go to a new software because you move on to your CDS. And very often, we see you carry your paper over and you have to retype the values that you just measured into that new software system. And if we take a look closer there because the data management is going to be the main focus of this solution. In the live demo, we'll also show a solution for the preparation process, our XPR automatic balance, but the focus is going to be the data transfer. So here, we've shown you a picture that we see very commonly in many of our customers' labs. And I think Kevin can probably confirm that also from his side. And -- so on the -- so on the left, you see a sheet with an instruction on it for a chemical analyst, preparing a calibration standard for his HPLC analysis. And of course, the one thing you see on there is the instruction, what does the user have to do, what concentration do you -- does he have to prepare, and the second thing you see is the results. So this here on the side, very commonly a balance with a strip printer that just prints out the weighing result of the standard weighing. And the third thing we have here is a calculation is, of course, after the weighing, the standard was dissolved in a solvent. And now depending on the size of your volumetric flask, you'll have to calculate the concentration. Because in the end, that concentration is needed in the CDS software. So you see that manual calculation here may be done with a calculator, maybe done on top of your head, depending how difficult it is. And you also see the fourth thing, and that is the signatures. Because these steps that are done manually, depending on your regulation, you need to have these 4 eye checks that also Kevin mentioned before. So this is very commonly, very manual data -- transmit manual data recording, calculation and then also transcription to other systems. Now if we have all that sheet -- if you have all that information on your paper sheet, of course, you then go to the CDS software, where you have to add it again.

Exactly. And on the right side, you can see how this looks like, especially with OpenLab. But basically, that's the same for any CDS, right? So now we have here -- what we see is 3 standards, and we have 1 where the values are already transcribed. So just for 1 standard now, we have -- with a 3-level calibration, we have already 3 values to transfer to the CDS, the more standards come, the more levels you have, the more information you have to transcribe and therefore, also the higher the risk to create transcription errors. And yes, that's what we want to address with our solution. And that's what we are also going to show you later on in the live demo how we are addressing it with the solution we developed together.

Exactly. So again, that was the basis what we see as a big pain point for many of our customers. And there's 2 main things that we decided on when we developed this solution. Now the first thing was that in this chromatography or HPLC workflow, it's not enough to only look at our own product portfolio. You probably know, Mettler-Toledo has quite a large portfolio of solutions for the analytic lab. Agilent has the same thing. But if you look at HPLC, which is one of the most common workflows in analytical laboratories in various industries. We, as Mettler-Toledo can provide solution from end to end, which is why we started working together with Agilent to develop a joint solution. So you have the specialist for weighing on the one side and we have a specialist for chromatography on the other. Now the second key point when we started developing that solution is to make it something tangible and not too disruptive because we didn't want to completely restructure the whole workflow, how chemists work in the lab. But we wanted to do it as close to the current workflow, but just digitalize that workflow. And with that digitalization, we can greatly help reduce errors. Errors, when it comes to transcription, but also are when it comes to making a mistake in the process. And this joint solution, you also see it on the picture here. So it goes from one side from the balance to the HPLC on the other. We are going to do a live demo of that solution. Now so let us switch to our cameras. Very good. So we are located in our Mettler-Toledo video laboratory that we can use for interactive customer demonstrations for webinars like this. So what we have on the 1 side is our XPR balance. Now this is an automated model. So this is an XPR automatic balance. But of course, the data transfer solution can also be used with a normal analytical balance. So that's all possible. So we have our balance here. Now this is the station where we will prepare our calibration standards. Of course, most commonly done and this volumetric flask, where you add your standard in powder form and then top it off with a suitable solvent to create a solution. Now once you prepare all your standards and solutions, you would move over to the HPLC, which is located at the other side of our lab. So this is our Agilent Infinity II HPLC, where we run our analysis on. And what we have on the PC here is our OpenLab CDS. Now running on here is not only OpenLab CDS, but also the Mettler-Toledo LabX software. Now this is our software that we use to connect not only our balances, but also other Mettler-Toledo instruments, of titration, PH and so on. But this is essentially our data management and workflow software that we have running in the background. So this is the PC that the hosts several data transfer, that controls the balance on 1 side and also the CDS on the other side. But first, we will show you a little bit the preparation workflow. And now especially in this case, I would like to present to you an automatic preparation with the XPR automatic balance. And again, as I said, this preparation could also be done in a volumetric flask and the data will still be transferred to the Agilent software. So on this module, you see here, we have on the bottom, we have a normal XPR analytical balance. And on the top, we have our dosing module that enables us to dispense powders and liquids. And the third thing is what you see on the terminal -- and I need to change my camera setting real quick. So on the terminal here, you can see a LabX interface. So this balance is connected to the PC software. And that enables you to capture your data in a compliant way, plus it will also enable you to run specific workflows that may also contain an SOP and clear instructions for the user what to do. So I'm going to start that. So since we are in a regulated environment, I as a user need to log in here. And now I get to my new home screen, and on here, either I can go into a folder of predefined methods or I can start a method from a shortcut here. Now these methods, as said, there are quite clear instructions on what a user needs to do. They can be defined a bit more strict or a bit more open. So the method I'm going to show you here is going to be very strictly defined. Because for me, as a user, I already know every Monday morning, I need to prepare the same standard again. So the method, for example, already knows what type of substance or what type of calibration standard I'm preparing. It already knows what concentrations I want to prepare. It knows the volume and it knows additional metadata. So that has find in the LabX method. So when I start here, I really only have to do a few steps. So the first one is going to be a vial ID. We implemented that because the vial ID is something that is being transferred to the Agilent system as well. So here, we have a bar code on our vial. And that bar code is going to be typed in on the terminal. And this is an information that I can access again from the Agilent software later on. I'll go to my next step. And here, as a user, I get the clear task to put in a suitable dosing head. Now in our case, of the automatic balance, we have this type of dosing heads here. They contain each a powder where you can dispense automatically out of. So I click in here, in our dosing module, I confirm on the balance. Balance is going to tare and I just need to put in my vial here. And then the dispense is going to happen automatically instead of me taking -- picking up my spatula and trying to weigh in a couple of milligrams. So the dosing module of the balance is going to dive down automatically close to the vial and then start to dispense. And you'll be able to see the process here on the screen. So you would set to dispense 15 milligrams, and that was because we have defined that we want to create a calibration solution with a concentration of 1.5 milligram per milliliter and create 15 milliliters of volume. So the powder is all dispensed. The weight of our standard that we dispensed is captured and the module is driving up again. So in the next step, the balance is going to tell me what I have to do next. So is now saying, I need to exchange this powder dosing head with a liquid dosing head. I'm going to do. I have it sitting next to me. And this liquid dosing head is connected to a bottle that contains my solvent to create a solution. So again, the process is very similar. The balance automatically prepares my standard and is also adjusting the amount of liquid that is being added. So it knew the exact weight of powder that it weighed in, and it calculated the needed amount of solvent based on the actual power because we give it a target concentration to prepare. The balance is, again, capturing the weight of the solution added, and they can use now this data. So the weight of the powder that it dispensed plus the weight of the solution that it added to it to calculate an actual concentration. So you see here the effective concentration is 1.5 milligram per milliliter and this is something that I don't have to do more with an excel sheet or on top of my head to create my concentration of the calibration standard. And this is now all also information that if I confirm that is being transferred to the Agilent OpenLab CDS with that seamless integration that we have to offer. So I will confirm here. So the data is captured in LabX in the background and is automatically being transferred to the OpenLab CDS. Now for me, of course, I have my sample prepared. Maybe I still need to transfer it to a suitable HPLC vial. Maybe I need to vortex it or sonicate it to make sure that it's properly dissolved. But once I've done that, I can take my rack with my calibration standard and maybe as before, maybe I've already prepared another or prepared a sample that I want to analyze. And with that, I can walk over to my HPLC. So we're going to do that now. So I will put in my samples into the HPLC software. And then I can go over to our HPLC software, which is, in this case, the sample scheduler. And here, maybe you didn't see it before, but when I showed this screen initially, there was only 1 row in here, so 1 sample waiting. And now we have added automatically a second sample. And this sample has been created automatically by the LabX OpenLab plug-in, and that plug-in has already filled in some of the meta information that captured by LabX. And I'm going to hand over to Kevin now to give you an insight into the Agilent software.

So as Andrea mentioned, all the data which we gave the sample already on the balance and all the data is automatically calculated on the balance, we can already see here. So if we click into the sample, we see the barcode he has scanned. So that information is here that -- which means in theory, we could even take the sample to the computer and have a barcode reader on the computer itself as well and scan the bar code in the search function, and then we would directly find the sample as well. And what -- all the other information we also have in here. So in the description, you see the task ID, which is the ID from the LabX software. This is for traceability when the information has been sent from 1 software to the other. And then you see the concentration or -- sorry, the solvent volume. So what the amount of liquid that has been dispensed and the amount of caffeine that has been weighed in and the resulting concentration which comes out of this. And what we still have to add here, of course, is the -- all the HPLC specific information, so which acquisition method we are going to need, which processing method we have to add, in which vial position we added -- we put the vial in because this is all information which the balance doesn't really have. But to make that easy, so you don't have to do that for every sample you weighed in, we can create some -- either some templates or we can create some instrument groups. Which means based on the instrument where we're going to run it -- where we're going to run this sample, it will automatically populate all the other information. So I'm going to show you just go to the edit mode and click on instrument group and there's an instrument group, which is called caffeine and coffee. And if I click safe, I directly have all the acquisition methods, the processing method, the injection volume which here is by the -- defined by the acquisition method as well already directly filled in. So the only thing which we cannot define by default because it doesn't really make sense is on which vial we have entered or we have put the sample in the rack. So this we still need to enter manually. Close this -- view a bit. So I say the calibration standard is on vial 1 and the sample we have prepared upfront is in vial position 2. Now what we can do is we can create a sequence right out of this web client. So the sample scheduler is running on the web client. This means you can do this -- all of that even without having OpenLab installed by itself. You can do that from any tablet, from any phone which is connected to the same network as the server where the software is running on. So this means we can create a sequence right from our tablet, right from our phone or, of course, also from the computer. I just say I can define the order of the samples of calibration standard first and then the sample, click apply and then you directly see the sequence has been created. Now if that's already enough information, it shows waiting. So that means it's ready. It has enough information to be sent. If you want to add some further information, you could still go in here and give it a sequence name, for example, and you can say you want to clear all calibration by the beginning of the injection -- of the sequence, sorry -- you save it or you can just send that already as it is and also to add this information later on. I'm going to close the view again. Now I just simply take all the sequence and then click play here. And you see the state changed from waiting to scheduled, which means this information or this sequence is now sent to OpenLab. Now for saving a bit of time, we are not going to wait until the HPLC has actually measured these samples, but we have prepared a data set upfront, which is showing you exactly the same as it would look like after the sequence has been run. So if I close that view and they open the data analysis view, you see that's the data analysis window of OpenLab. You see we have 2 injections here. One -- the first one is a calibration standard and the second one is our sample. So calibration standard looks a bit more clean than sample, which makes sense. Here, we directly see the calibration curves automatically calculated out of all the information received -- we received by the balance. And on the lower right side, you see the results of the sample. So you can see it here, we have the concentration -- the calculated concentration based on the information that we received from the balance. And on the injection list itself, you can see here all the metadata that has been transferred from LabX to OpenLab is also visible here. Beside this, you can also see the sample type, the level, the -- the batch IDs or bar or the -- yes, the batch ID and the sample ID as well. So the barcodes which we have scanned in the beginning, the acquisition method and the processing method we have applied and which is important, the compound amounts, which has been transferred from the balance to OpenLab, you can also see. So that's what it takes to then calibrate the sequence or what's is used to create the calibration curve. Yes. So that's fully automated workflow we showed you now.

Yes. So we'll switch back to the presentation. Okay. So now importantly, that workflow that we showed you, I've said it before, and the goal of this collaboration together with Agilent, we don't want to create a completely disruptive and new solution for this. So all the instruments you've seen are standard either Mettler-Toledo or Agilent products. Now what we did develop is this plug-in, and that plug-in connects our LabX software with OpenLab CDS. And of course, there's a whole bunch of solutions that you can use to optimize and digitize your workflow with. So I'm going to start with the Mettler-Toledo side, and Kevin is going to take over for the Agilent side. So of course, we have our analytical balances that you can use to create your calibration standards or samples. And the system you've seen as the third year in a row. Now this system can automatically dispense powders and liquids. Of course, very suitable if you need to create low concentrations or weigh in low amounts of powers. But of course, we know that in most laboratories, volumetric flasks are still very, very commonly used. So that is, of course, also possible. So you could work with an analytical balance and volumetric flasks. The LabX method, so the step-by-step guide on the terminal would be designed a little bit differently, so you would weigh in your powders and then you would select the flask size so that LabX can calculate the actual concentration of the standard that you've prepared. Then of course, there is a semi-automatic solution available. This can only dispense liquids. But that means it can adapt the liquid amount. So if you add your powder and you overshoot your target a little bit, the LabX method will change the amount of solvent that it's going to dispense to reach your target concentration again. Then, of course, we have the automatic balance that is seen in the live demo. And then, of course, you could also go full robotic with our CHRONECT XPR solution. Now very importantly, in the background of all of these systems, we have our LabX software running. Now of course, this LabX software cannot be only used for this specific workflow. On the 1 side, there is a whole bunch of our lab instruments that you can connect to. So it also have instrument overview, which instruments are available, which are calibrated and so on. And of course, you can use it to capture data from all of your instruments in a compliant way. And the third thing is the guided workflows that you've also just seen. So you can either design them openly or you can design them quite narrowly, let's say, so the users can deviate from a process. So it essentially represents step-by-step SOP directly at the terminal of your instrument.

And what you need from the Agilent side is, of course, you need OpenLab, and from OpenLab 2.7 on sample scheduler and is automatically coming with the software. Hence the bridge or these plug-in we created together is available and working from OpenLab 2.7 on. Besides this, as just mentioned, we also need sample scheduler, which is this web-based client I just showed you before because this is the piece which is picking up the LabX information and sends it then to the OpenLab software itself. And you need, of course, instruments you can run it with, preferably Agilent LCs and Agilent GCs. But basically, we can say that this workflow is working for any instrument, which is controllable by OpenLab. So whatever drivers which are available in OpenLab will also be applicable for this workflow.

Exactly. Very nice. So this was the only of the solutions that are needed possible to run this automatic data transfer. And importantly, to add here, this plug-in that essentially sits between the 2 slides that we showed you. This has been developed by Mettler-Toledo and Agilent together. So it is a globally supported and verified solution that we can just use to connect our standard softwares. And with that solution, kind of to summarize the benefits of that automatic transfer is, of course, that we can enhance your LC, GC workflows by automatically transferring data and reducing transcription errors. So I think that is one of the key benefits here. So you don't have to write down the values on paper and then retype them in another software. But of course, you've also seen in the sample scheduler is we don't just transfer the concentration value, we also transfer some metadata. For example, what user has prepared the standard on the balance. That is still visible in the CDS at the end or a LabX task ID that allows you to find the audit trail of that result set on the balance. Another part is, of course, an increase in productivity that you can achieve with guided workflows or automating part of the process steps with our automated solution. And of course, for our more regulated customers with these 2 softwares, we can fully ensure compliance and allow you to capture deep data quality. Because LabX as a software solution is fully compliant as well as OpenLab So we're connecting 2 fully compliant systems with this. And -- Yes, that would already be for the demonstration and presentation part of our solution. We don't want to make it too long.

But of course, we would now go to a Q&A session in this webinar. Now I've seen we have quite a big group in our meeting. So please, if you do have any questions regarding this solution, you can type them into the chat of Microsoft Teams, and we will do our best to answer your questions or maybe show you something additionally, if you want. So let us put up the chat box. So there is 1 question in already. And I think that is one more on Kevin side because the workflow also worked with LC/MS instruments.

Well, the answer is it depends because as you may know, OpenLab can control LC/MS, but only single quad and only a certain type of single quad. So this goes into what I explained like 1, 2 slides before, when the driver is within OpenLab, so for example, for the iQ single quad of Agilent, which is controllable by OpenLab, the answer is yes. But for a triple quad or a [ TOF ] as this is not controlled by OpenLab, the answer is no. Because sample scheduler is clearly only working together with OpenLab itself.

Very good. Are there any further questions? Else, we will take it as a feedback that we have covered all potential open thoughts in our presentation and virtual demo. Looks like we really thought that through, right? Okay. Very good. If there are, of course, further questions or you are interested in this solution, as we have said, this is a joint solution. So either you're Agilent software specialists or your Mettler-Toledo sales rep or LabX specialist can help you implement that solution. We will then come together to install and deploy and verify that solution to you.

I think that's one for you.

Yes. That's 1 question for me. What is the minimum quantity of sample that we need to have in standard bottle that make transferring. So I'm not sure if I understand the question fully, correct. But 1 thing could be what kind of concentration can we prepare with these dosing heads automatically? So the dosing heads themselves, the ones that I put into the dispensing module, they do have a small volume inside that is a couple of milligrams, depending on the dosing head type. So we would definitely recommend it if you do multiple dispensers with that head. Regarding the concentrations that you can prepare automatically on that system, that depends a bit again on your regulation, what the minimum weight is that your balance allows. But the dispensing mechanism itself can dispense from up to what 1 milligram. And then transferring it to an HPLC vial and into the HPLC that doesn't really need much, depends on HPLC vial [ reviews]. Then now the questions are coming in. How does the automatic balance costs? Now I can't answer that to you directly. It does depend on the country that you are in. So we can have a sales rep from our side and follow up with you on that. But I can tell you this that the price of the balance depends on -- or the price of the automatic balance depends on the analytical balance that is being used. Because this dispensing module is compatible with all XPR analytical balances. So you could have, for example, an XPR 204 that you use with the module or an XPR 226. So much more readability and that, of course, costs a bit more. But we'll have someone follow up with you on a rough estimate in your local currency. Then the next question is, does -- do the data points from LabX have handles for the OpenLab CDS custom report engine?

That's one for me again, right?

Yes.

Yes. So if I get that correctly, the answer is yes. So all the information which is transferred from the balance while our sample scheduler to OpenLab, of course, then is also accessible within OpenLab. And therefore, we can also report any of these information on a customer report. So the answer is yes.

Yes. And maybe to that question, where is the data stored. So of course, all the data that you saw in the demo that showed up in the OpenLab CDS and in a sample scheduler, of course, that can be used in the reporting that you normally do within your OpenLab CDS system. But the full audit trail of what has happened to an instrument that you used is kept for the HPLC on the OpenLab CDS on your Agilent system, and for the balance, it is within the LabX software. What you do have, however, is a LabX task ID. So if, let's say, you are within your OpenLab system and you want to figure out or you need the audit trail for the task or the balance that you've used with a certain -- for a certain workflow, you can look up the LabX task ID that you have in the OpenLab CDS and find that specific result set and all the metadata from the balance when it has been calibrated, when has something been changed, you can find that within LabX.

And we could even put the task ID on the report. So you have a link of the LabX task directly on your OpenLab report if that is wished.

Yes. So the microbalance question, so can we use microbalance XPR2U or XPR 206 for this practice? Yes, you can. Because the LabX software is compatible with all XPR balances. So of course, you can -- if you really need to weigh in very, very low amount, so then you'd be using a Microbalance. So you can have your LabX method run on a XPR Microbalance. The weight will still be captured and being transferred to OpenLab CDS. And that is the same for a precision balance. If it is an XPR balance that is LabX compatible, you could also do it there if you, let's say, prepare very large amounts of samples or standards. We just see the most common balance for this calibration standard practice, an analytical balance, which is why we showed it. Okay. That might have been all questions. Very good. Thank you very much for joining us today for this webinar. And as said before, this is a joint solution of Mettler-Toledo and Agilent Technologies. So if you are interested in having either a part of the solutions that we presented to you today or on workflow in your lab, please contact either your Mettler-Toledo or Agilent Technologies representative. So we can follow up with you on that. So very nice. Okay. In that case, we thank you for joining, and we hope we were able to present you something interesting this afternoon, and we wish you all a nice evening.

Have a good day, evening.

Bye-bye. Thank you very much.