We as a whole want to expand our lab efficiency. We have deadlines to meet, distributions to write, and patent applications to submit. Since resources are limited, we are constantly under pressure to increase productivity. Lab’s effectiveness increases by following eight steps that decidedly affect the efficiency of teams across numerous industries.
INCREASE YOUR LAB EFFICIENCY
- Eliminate waste. Waste is whatever doesn’t increase the value of your work. Sources of waste in the lab include defects in product, overproduction, under-used ability, non-approached specialists, preparing disappointments, transportation issues, putting extra efforts, and waiting for individuals, equipment, or reagents.
- Empower your team. You should train your team to become more productive by eliminating waste. Instead of viewing waste as your team failing, make it a group opportunity for improving your lab’s health and productivity. To boost team morale and participation, you should even gamify the experience.
- Organize your Lab. You must reduce or eliminate the amount of time searching for tools, supplies, or information. You must be having a powerful tool to improve safety and quality in the work area.
- Track issues. Spreadsheets can help in doing this. Whenever you detect any issue write it down with the date and problem description to the document. You can also track your attempted solutions, also these turns into a living quality document for your lab. It is a tool for tracking defects and errors easily to improve quality over time! After consistently logging your lab problems, your most frequent and possibly elusive challenges will make themselves known. Additionally, we suggest that you empower and challenge your team to come up with new lab productivity solutions. Problem-solving is part of being a research scientist; having the same problem repeatedly is an issue that needs to get fixed.
- Label your samples. Mislabeled samples lead to confusion, decreased productivity, and ultimately decreased reproducibility. If your labels are inconsistent amongst all team members, expensive reagents and data are often lost. Use a LIS system to automate your labeling processes to decrease wasted time, money, and effort. Check out this guide to sample labeling to develop sample labeling best practices that will save time and money.
- Automate your processes. With the ever-increasing need for larger data sets, it is necessary to increase the repeatability and reproducibility of laboratory processes. In other words, without streamlining your resources and research your reproducibility falls to the wayside. One of the main benefits of automation is that it increases reproducibility and reduces failure. It is a common mistake to think that automation is limited to physical automation. It is possible to automate laboratory processes without automated instruments.
Use Lis365
LIS365 is a Laboratory information system that allows your lab to run more efficiently. It enables your team to produce more and better data with its existing resources.
Evaluate how Lis365 can help your lab by scheduling a demonstration or signing up for a free trial.
