Few words strike fear in a scientist’s heart quite like: “We’re moving the lab.” The best-laid experimental plans suddenly take a back seat to packing tape, freezer inventories, and debates over where every outlet and gas line should be. Every hour offline carries costs—missed milestones, lost productivity, and delays that ripple into dependent programs.
For lab managers, minimizing the gap between closing one lab and opening the next makes the biggest difference. Doing so requires early planning, clear accountability, strong vendor coordination, and tools that keep staff aligned when everything around them is changing.
How to ensure a smooth lab move
Plan before the date is set
Lab moves often become real long before they become official. Treat early speculation as planning time. Capture key information about every major asset: size, weight, HVAC needs, electrical load, backup-power status, and installation requirements. Confirm whether vendors must decommission or revalidate critical instruments.
This initial step proved beneficial for Sophie Torma, senior manager of discovery operations at Biohaven, who oversaw the simultaneous relocation of the company’s main biology lab and the opening of a new vivarium—a move involving nearly 30 scientists, facility renovations, sensitive in-transit samples, and tight expectations for minimal downtime. Her team began planning more than a month in advance, even without a confirmed date.
That early work paid off when approval arrived suddenly—on a Friday—with only a week of anticipated downtime. Vendor schedules were already set, space configurations were mapped, and communication channels were clear.
“The most important step for minimizing downtime was to be extremely transparent and communicative with all vendors and stakeholders involved,” explains Torma. “We only experienced four days of downtime in the main lab, and two days in our vivarium due to the amount of prep we were able to accomplish.”
Design the new workflow in advance
A relocation offers a chance to rethink workflows. Use scaled layouts to model bench placement, storage zones, instrument adjacency, and traffic patterns.
Torma’s team imported floor plans into a digital tool that allowed them to assign equipment and workstations to exact locations. Printed markers went directly on benches and floors at the new site so movers knew exactly where items belonged.
This approach avoids days of rearranging after arrival and reduces the costly relocation of utilities.
Protect what matters most
Sensitive materials and equipment present a significant risk during transport. Temperature-controlled trucks, powered trailer connections, and fail-safe monitoring are essential for freezers, cold-chain samples, and high-value instrumentation.
“If these pieces of equipment went out of range or broke during transit, a huge investment of materials would be lost,” Torma notes. Her team relied on powered vehicles to maintain freezer conditions throughout the move.
To maintain continuity of research, end as many experiments as possible before packing begins. For essential ongoing work, coordinate with EHS, legal, and the receiving facility to ensure both viability and safety are maintained at every step.
Replace tribal knowledge with documentation
Moves expose how much the day-to-day operation depends on memory. Write everything down: what is moving, who owns it, how it must be packed, where it will go, and what it needs on arrival.
Torma’s group labeled each box with its contents, who packed it, and a map showing the destination bench or room. A master equipment list documented dimensions, outlet requirements, and schedule.
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“All of the work you do in your day-to-day, such as maintaining equipment lists or chemical inventory…are key tools in ensuring a lab relocation with minimal downtime or incidents,” she says.
Maintain constant communication
Even the best plan must adapt once moving starts. Assign point-people at each site—old lab, new lab, and any satellite spaces—to coordinate in real time. Establish frequent check-ins and a shared tracker listing which items are moving each day, how they are traveling, and any constraints.
Torma’s team met each morning to update a spreadsheet with daily move tasks and confirmed transport methods. If something changed, they could adjust quickly rather than lose hours to confusion. That discipline helped them complete the main lab move with only four days of downtime.
Engage vendors who can flex
Specialized relocation vendors bring expertise in scheduling, permitting, crating, and maintaining environmental controls in transit. Their responsiveness becomes critical during laboratory moves.
“We experienced extremely tight timelines, and having a vendor that brought experience and was able to work with us on short notice was invaluable in our successful move,” Torma says.
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Reduce the load before moving day
Moves force decisions about what to keep, what to discard, and what must be stored differently. Purging outdated chemicals and long-idle materials months in advance saves time later and reduces waste at the new site. Involving scientists improves buy-in and produces a workspace that feels organized, not just unpacked.
Visual planning tools also ensure staff agree that the new layout supports their workflow before construction or cabling begins.
Capture lessons while the lab move is happening
Every relocation generates knowledge your team will need again. Track what you planned versus what actually occurred each day. Document improvements. Note unexpected delays and their root causes. This becomes the starting point for the next transition.
If doing it again, Torma jokes: “I certainly wouldn’t try to do two at the same time!” She also notes that she would preemptively collect contacts for plumbing, electrical, and other facilities-related tasks, since last-mile adjustments are almost guaranteed.
Relocation without the disruption
A lab relocation will always slow things down, but it doesn’t have to stall progress. When lab managers approach the move like any other critical operational project—with clear ownership, detailed documentation, and reliable support from facilities and vendors—the transition becomes predictable instead of chaotic. That structure shortens downtime and gets the lab’s work back on track sooner.
