Properly managed inventory is fundamental for a successful business—and the laboratory business is no exception. Despite the fact that laboratories use some of the world’s most advanced technology and instrumentation, up to 85% of labs rely on dated inventory management systems—manual tracking with paper records and spreadsheets—that are inefficient, costly, and prone to errors and oversights. Digitizing this process makes day-to-day operations more efficient for scientists and technicians on the laboratory floor, which translates to numerous benefits for the organization as a whole, including a reduction in waste and sunken costs, improved compliance, and shorter lead times for customers. The cloud-based LANEXO™ Lab Inventory, Safety and Compliance Management System is a smart digital data capture solution designed to simplify inventory management and enhance efficiency, productivity, and compliance.
The Costs of Inefficient Systems
Inefficient inventory management creates significant waste. Chemicals, reagents, antibodies and many other laboratory consumables have expiry dates, and using expired materials has implications for data integrity and can even destroy entire experiments. With inefficient inventory management, many laboratories dispose of nearly 2-5% of total stock that is expired, and often unused. Further compounding these losses is the time spent manually inspecting records for expired consumables in root-cause analysis.
Motion waste also stems inefficient inventory management. Without easily accessible, real-time data, laboratory personnel must search the lab for the necessary materials. Time spent searching significantly prolongs experimental setup, impedes workflows, and decreases productivity.
Laboratories are also facing increased demand from regulatory authorities, and inefficient inventory management exposes them to the high financial risks of non-compliance. Manual maintenance of records for audit trails, including recording experimental workflows and chain of custody, is complex and time consuming. Further, manual data transcription and calculations are prone to human error and pose significant challenges for audit-readiness. Safety compliance is also a concern, and without rapid access to Safety Data Sheets (SDS), the risk of mishandling or incorrectly disposing of chemicals and reagents is increased. Accessible SDS are essential to ensure incompatible chemicals are not stored together.
Many labs lag in digital data capture, and the implications for costs, compliance, and safety are enormous. Implementing a digital solution can address these business challenges and improve lab efficiency and productivity.
Transform Your Laboratory with Digital Data Capture
A smart digital data capture solution transforms inventory management into an efficient and seemingly effortless process. The LANEXO™ Lab Inventory, Safety and Compliance Management System combines digital data capture and RFID label inventory-tracking to Smart Digital Data Capture Transforms Inventory Management for Enhanced Efficiency, Productivity, and Compliance 1 Digital Inventory Management: Good for the Lab, Good for Business rapidly document laboratory reagent data in real time. The system encompasses an intuitive web and mobile app, and is easily integrated into existing workflows. As a vendor neutral system, it supports full laboratory coverage with a broad consumables database of Merck and third-party articles. With LANEXO™ labs can reduce the annual time required to manage inventory by up to 97%, and allow scientists to focus on science.
Using Smart Seal RFID labels encoded with consumables data and an intuitive app, users can access the most up-to-date inventory information, including the owner, opening and expiration dates, location, usage, and disposal information. Access to accurate inventory data on-demand reduces stock waste by preventing unnecessary or redundant ordering and the accumulation of consumables that will expire before they are used. The system also guides reagent selection using the “first in, first out” principle to prevent missed expiry dates.
In addition to reducing stock waste, LANEXO™ improves workflows and productivity by preventing outages and experimental errors, and reducing motion waste. The system sends automatic digital alerts for low stock levels, to ensure users never run out of materials unexpectedly during experiments, as well expiry date alerts, to ensure expired reagents never compromise experimental outcomes. The intuitive mobile app enables users to quickly and easily locate materials in the lab, and eliminates time spent searching for supplies throughout the workday.
LANEXO™ is also designed to facilitate compliance in highly-regulated analytical and research laboratories. The combination of digital data capture and an intuitive application significantly reduces the risk of human error and increases the reliability and traceability of compliance documentation. With custom-designed RFID labels, each reagent, including those prepared in-house, can be instantly matched to a full audit report for better audit-readiness and improved GxP/regulatory compliance.
The comprehensive system also supports safety compliance. With the mobile app, users have all reagent data, including SDS at their fingertips to ensure safe chemical and reagent handling. Users can also easily perform storage compliance checks by scanning the location label, then the consumable’s label to receive an automated alert if there is a safety or non-compliance issue.
The LANEXO™ Lab Inventory, Safety and Compliance Management System benefits all members of the laboratory organization, and puts laboratories on the path to achieving time, cost, and quality advantages. It’s time to leave the spreadsheets behind and embark on a digital transformation to solve your laboratory’s business challenges.