An individual software program or group of programs, routines or algorithms that add specific data communication, display, processing and/or system integration capabilities to one or more pre-analytical laboratory processing functions (eg. robotic specimen transfer, aliquoting, pipetting, serial dilutions, reagent dispensing, etc) and assay processing functions (microplate washing, incubation control, plate agitation etc) using a series of programmable sequences and data communication facilities to achieve semi-automated throughput. The program applications are restricted to instrument operations and do not generally include data reduction, result interpretation or reporting facilities.