Fifteen years at Brussels IVF, one platform that kept growing
What began in 2010 with sensors on the most important cryogenic vessels is now several hundred sensors across one of Europe's largest fertility centres.
- Partnership since
- 2010
- Benchtop incubators
- 23
- Sensors
- Several hundred
The situation
Brussels IVF, part of UZ Brussel, moved equipment across multiple laboratory areas in 2010. The centre needed one platform that could see everything at once, inside the network of a complex university hospital rather than beside it.
The first priority was cryogenic storage. Long term storage carries a quiet kind of risk: nothing appears to be happening until a great deal has already happened.
What we built
Monitoring started on the most critical cryogenic vessels and grew outward as the laboratory grew. Today it covers 23 benchtop incubators, cleanroom conditions, power supply and VOC levels, with several hundred sensors reporting continuously.
The system is hosted by the hospital IT department, so it lives under the same governance, the same access control and the same continuity planning as every other clinical system on site.
Where it stands now
Fifteen years on, the platform has outlasted several generations of laboratory equipment. Each change of instrument became an extension of the same monitoring picture rather than a new island of alarms.
"Having full monitoring and visibility on all of our cryogenic storage vessels' parameters is imperative to mitigate the risks of long-term cryogenic storage."
ETZ Tilburg: thirty minutes of margin, and no more
A twenty year old monitoring system overhauled alongside a full incubator replacement, tuned to a much shorter reaction window.
Hewitt Fertility Centre: future proofing a cryogenic repository
Centralised monitoring since 2005, extended into LN₂ control, automatic filling and a single project plan signed off by the NHS.
Three ways forward.
Pick the one that fits where you are today.