Abstract

Perspectives on Standard Documents in Microfluidics

Ratna Tantra, Senior Research Scientist , National Physical Laboratory

There is an increasing interest in the microfluidics community to standardise. This is evident by the recent launch of an European project, MF manufacturing, whose goal is to standardise interconnections for the purpose of plug-and-play and interoperability. However, to successfully implement the output of the project, there is a need to consider the role and significance of developing and publishing standard documents. Here, we present a review of how the standardisation process works and explains why there has been minimal output coming from ISO. We will present findings from a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis, which aims to identify action points for the community. Our findings highlight the need to create a priority list as to what kind of standard documents are needed and for draft documents to be subsequently fed into appropriate ad hoc group as first point of call for the purpose of consensus building prior to flagging up the work in ISO.