Leading an industrial analytical lab can be a complex challenge with many overlapping priorities. These labs are responsible for characterizing materials and substances important to the business. They also need to determine the composition of samples and quantitate the components.
The lab manager needs to find the right balance between developing the staff, delivering for stakeholders, managing lab operations, and advocating for investment. Here is a closer look at some of the key responsibilities of running an industrial analytical lab:
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People focus
Despite the drive for more lab automation, people are responsible for most of the lab’s output. Successful lab managers have a people-centric approach to leadership. They understand the strengths of their people and design roles that will both deliver key results for stakeholders and allow staff to work within their strengths. Building a positive work environment will enable everyone to bring their best self to work, which drives the success and performance of the lab.
Understanding stakeholder needs
The lab’s purpose is to provide analytical characterization data to various internal stakeholders, who, in turn, provide the necessary revenue to meet its budget. The lab manager should assess the needs of these stakeholders, distinguish them from wants, and develop the lab to excel at meeting those needs. This becomes a series of intermixed exploration, problem-solving, and complaint response conversations, which require excellent communication skills, especially active listening.
Developing skills
Lab managers need to hire and develop staff that have the skills to deliver on the stakeholders’ needs. The most successful lab managers focus on hiring and retaining staff with the right attitude and traits to be successful in this environment—growth mindset, grit, intrinsic motivation, emotional maturity, teamwork, and critical thinking. Skills can be taught, but attitude can’t be changed. From this talented foundation, develop specific technical skills to solve the analytical problems raised by stakeholders. This will often require a mixture of specialists and generalists. Specialists have deep knowledge of a specific scientific discipline and can develop new approaches to solving hard problems. Generalists have broad knowledge that integrates different disciplines to solve complex problems.
Managing staff size
Operating within a department budget requires effective decision-making around spending. The biggest cost of an analytical lab is the people. Lab managers need to align the size of the staff and the distribution of roles to meet those budgetary requirements. One approach is to staff the lab for the “Goldilocks situation," not too hot and not too cold. Staff for the center of the workload to ensure high utilization without overwhelming the team. When the work demands exceed the size of the staff, decisions can be made with key stakeholders about expanding the staff or outsourcing some of the work.
Lab safety in industrial analytical labs
Analytical labs work with a variety of hazards ranging from dangerous chemicals and substances to sharp tools, very hot and cold surfaces, and high voltage equipment. Staff cannot work effectively if they are concerned with their safety. It is incumbent on lab leadership to ensure the physical, emotional, and psychological safety of the entire staff. Building a culture of safety helps staff identify, assess, and mitigate the risks in a constructive fashion.
Lab quality
Stakeholders must have confidence in the results produced by the lab. Installing, managing, and improving a quality management system (QMS) will provide the framework of protocols, procedures, and policies that will drive the lab to produce high-quality results. There are many different quality systems available, and industrial analytical labs have the flexibility to choose the system that works best for them. Creating a culture of quality will build upon the QMS to deliver a staff-driven approach to high-quality science.
Data-driven decisions
Lab managers are responsible for making a wide range of decisions that the lab depends on to function and be successful. Lab managers benefit from making data-driven decisions. There is a significant amount of data available from systems like the laboratory information management system, staff timesheets, budgets, inventories, quality and safety records, instrument maintenance logs, and staff performance evaluations that lab managers can use to make better decisions. Data-driven decisions often lead to better outcomes, are easier to communicate, and leave a path to reconsider or change decisions in the future as needed.
Prioritization
One of the most important decisions that analytical lab managers need to make is prioritization. These labs have a constantly changing queue of work that ranges from simple tests to complex projects. Stakeholder needs will continually evolve based on business demands, bringing samples to the lab with varying levels of urgency. A useful paradigm for making priority decisions is the Eisenhower matrix. In its simplest form, it is a 2x2 matrix with high and low values for importance and urgency. Prioritizing work that is both important and urgent is clear. Lab managers then need to find the right priority balance of work that is important versus work that is urgent.
Providing instruments
Analytical labs are capital-intensive spaces because this kind of work requires expensive analytical instruments. To deliver to stakeholders, the lab must have access to the right instruments. It is the lab manager’s responsibility to develop a capital budget to identify the most important instruments and find the right balance between replacing old instruments and purchasing new capabilities. The lab manager will need to be the spokesperson for the lab building the business case, examining the return on investment, and advocating to line management for approval to add new instruments to the lab.
Repair and Maintenance
Keeping the expensive instruments running and helping them last longer is in the best interest of the lab. The analytical lab manager needs to make key decisions about how each instrument will be maintained and repaired. There is rarely a sufficient budget to have service contracts on everything. The repair and maintenance budget will need to be prioritized between service contracts, pay-as-you-go service, and doing it yourself.
Managing an industrial analytical lab is a challenge. There are numerous decisions to be made, from people management to scientific problem-solving. There is also the opportunity to be at the center of key discoveries that can help the company be successful and help the science progress. This role can bring a healthy dose of both challenge and satisfaction.
