Albert Invent, Oakland, California, the company accelerating R&D with its data-driven, end-to-end platform, today announced the evolution of its Worksheet product. It now brings all of scientists’ data, formulas, and materials into one connected command center that integrates with the full R&D ecosystem, giving them the ability to understand their experiments and data in real time. As part of its ongoing commitment to expediting innovation and driving productivity while reducing costs for customers, Albert Invent’s next generation Worksheet is a true replacement for Excel, with an extensible database sitting behind it. The result is a first-of-its-kind experience for chemical and materials scientists who develop the products we use every day. The new Worksheet enables even greater IP protection, fewer experiment iterations, and increased cost savings in addition to reducing errors and fostering greater collaboration.
“The Albert Worksheet is an enabler of the paperless laboratory. It’s like Excel on steroids,” said Albert Invent CEO and Co-founder Nick Talken. “We’ve taken the format and functionality with which scientists are already comfortable and added everything they need to intuitively make experiments faster, easier, and more effective. Because we’ve spent years in the lab ourselves, we know where traditional point systems, such as ELNs and LIMS, do not actually make the job of a scientist easier; they’re just adding another system on top of Excel or a paper notebook. The Albert Worksheet arms scientists with an actual replacement, allowing scientists to work more efficiently, reduce repeat data entry, and have all of their information clean and connected–from inventory, to new product designs and formulations, to experimental properties and measurements.”
“The Albert Worksheet has been a game changer when it comes to managing my projects. It is easy-to-use like Excel, though with Albert, I’m able to be much more productive,” said Avia Bar, PD and Research Chemist at Henkel. “All my project data is connected in one place and automatically synced in real-time. As a result, I am able to focus my time more on analysis and project outcomes vs. spending time looking for, collecting, and organizing data.”
Worksheet Evolved
At its core, Worksheet is a connected space where scientists can design formulations and access experiment data in real time. By tapping into the lab’s IP, scientists can avoid repeating or relearning things already uncovered. They can search experiments to see what’s been done and what the outcomes were to make better decisions about which formulations to test next, all the while seamlessly contributing to the lab’s database so that colleagues anywhere in the world can also benefit. With real-time visibility into inventory, it becomes the perfect solution for planning laboratory tasks; Worksheet ties experimental measurements to formulas to inventory, which enables scientists to handle reporting without embarking on incredibly time-consuming data aggregation. It’s all part of one connected R&D ecosystem.
“Our goal is to do more with more,” said Philip Clark, PhD., Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer at new Albert customer Nouryon. “This means we aren’t trying to use technology to replace scientists, but rather allow them to collaborate and work much more effectively. With Albert, we can easily leverage our own knowledge in a way that works for our scientists while fostering innovation.”
Because all information is entered and updated in real time, mistakes are drastically reduced and repeat data entry is avoided. This results in clean, structured data, which then gets repurposed, reorganized, and reviewed across different use cases. By integrating historical data, not only do scientists no longer have to re-enter data with each experiment, but data is also easily ready for integration into AI models, which can yield further insights.
“It’s not just speed, it’s not just accuracy; it’s the insights you get that open new possibilities,” added Talken. “So many times we see customers who need weeks to prepare a historical dataset for building a machine learning model. Data cleaning and aggregation is the bottleneck, as disconnected spreadsheets and systems cause tremendous pain to even answer the simplest question like: what are all the products in which we have measured viscosity? With a single integrated R&D platform, this question becomes a couple clicks, enabling models to be built in near real-time.”
The new Albert Worksheet debuts with thousands of scientists all over the world already leveraging Albert. Since its funding announcement just three months ago, Albert has grown its customer base across the U.S. and Europe, with some of the largest and most innovative chemistry companies joining the R&D data revolution.
To fully support the needs of this customer base, Albert recently achieved ISO 27001 certification, validating the company’s rigorous approach to platform security to protect customers’ IP and R&D data. The company continues to increase headcount to meet product demand and further innovation initiatives, including enhancing and expanding machine learning capabilities.
For those attending the Western Coatings Show in Las Vegas Oct 15- 18, 2023 who want to hear more perspective on how Albert is transforming the lab, the company will be speaking on Digital Transformation Best Practices and the Use of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning in R&D.
To learn more, please visit: www.albertinvent.com.
