Andy Mitchell

Andy started working for Unilever in 1995 as a microbiologist. He was tasked with performing the European Disinfectant Test, a very laborious and resource intensive manual assay. He soon developed a miniaturized version that fitted it into microplate and this enabled the purchase of a liquid handling platform.

Following on the journey, he was a founding member of the R&D High Throughput Sciences Team where Andy has spent the last 15 years building automation platforms, and particularly the Data Management, Standards and IT infrastructure around them. His purpose is to ensure every data point generated is available for decision making, wherever it is needed in the organization. In this session Andy will discuss his journey, what has changed and what has stayed the same, as Unilever R&D has moved from single instruments through to large integrated platforms and now into the world of collaborative robots.