Genomika Labs: Our web-based laboratory equipment management solution for our biomedical engineering department
The problem
Any laboratory in a growing process, needs to concern about its equipment infra-structure. As the number of equipments increases, it becomes a challenging task for the biomedical engineering department to manage the status of all equipment, guaranteeing electrical safeness, calibration and well-functioning. The thumb rule is : the more effective the management is, the less the chances of inconveniences caused by malfunctioning of equipment will occur. Similarly, the better the lab equipment are taken care of, it presents a logical solution from the point of financial, technical and customer-centric feasibility.
When Genomika Diagnósticos started , as any beginning startup , our laboratory equipment's inventory was managed on a simple spreadsheet. Data from 2015 states there were a total of 200 lab equipment's managed manually by our lab engineering department (at the time only one person). There have been recorded high chances of human error to miss out an important update or maintenance schedule every month. There was a lot of mundane repetitive work resulting in an increasing workload and probability of errors for our lab management team.
This article will provide all the essentials you need to know before going through a development of a lab inventory management and the pros and cons of tailored inventory management solutions.
Let's search for an out-of-box inventory system
Lab inventory management system automates and optimizes inventory and equipment management, keeping the every information related to the equipment in one repository, so the engineering staff can perform their service tasks efficiently and effectively.
At the time our clinical engineering manager came to our I.T team (only me at the time) to see whether I could help them with the inventory and the equipment preventive maintenance schedules. At the time my solution was a simple Google Calendar periodical alerts for all equipments.
But the requirements and needs for the stakeholders started to pile up. Furthermore, we were starting to contract more lab staff, releasing more novel sequencing genetic exams. It meant more computers, printers and machines to manage. It was time for an asset management system for resolve this particular issue.
Based on the generative day-by-day of our engineering department that I researched and observed, I created one persona that capture the essence of our target user.
Thus, they came with a list of what a well-rounded inventory software should have:
With the requirements gathered, we refined and came out the main core features:
Equipment Inventory Management. It is important to create an inventory for managing the lab equipment's. Inventory is a list of equipments registered, each one filled with precise information about the asset, that could be easily inspected and updated at regular time intervals. Details here includes model, serial number, invoices, location at the lab, etc.
Paperwork and documentation. Our staff should be able to handle with all related paperwork by uploading maintenance repair reports and invoices, avoiding physical documentation handling.
Preventive maintenance scheduling alerts. An inventory management system can help the staff schedule planned periodical preventive maintenance and calibrations and notify them by email alerts when the due maintenance dates is close.
Monitoring of supplies. Each equipment should be unique identified by a label, therefore a lab staff should be able to get information about the equipment using this specific print label.
Audit custom reports. The financial and engineering team needs frequently an inventory report with detailed information about the equipment and its maintenance date logs for audit inspections routines and service sessions.
The list above is just a picture of some of the needs for a lab inventory system must have. After some product discovery interviews and requirements refinement, we came to our request features plan.
At the time, we started to search for out-of-the-box softwares with easy and quick to start using. But as our survey was going on, we arrived to long-term pricey contract models or lack of flexibility for many of solutions. Since the inventory management system wasn't the priority at the time for the lab business strategy, we decided to develop a simple web-based inventory management system as MVP only to replace the spreadsheet catalogue.
It resulted at:
Genomika Labs , the planned version
Our first sketches of wireframes were designed by several interviews between me and our designer in order to validate our initial ideas.
The problem was how we would develop it. We didn't have the team for development and my skills in JS and frontend at the time were limited. So that it came to our mind to use Django Suit skin + Django Admin.
Django Admin is a powerful tool for managing data in your app. However, it was not designed for advanced flows. Luckily, the developers of Django Admin made it easy for us to customize using advanced plugins such as Django suit.
At the time, me and my trainee started to work on for about two months in order to have on-line this MVP. Our first web based equipment inventory management came to life at 2015, named:
Genomika Labs, until the current date
Our inventory had replaced the numerous spreadsheets. Our lab equipment grew over more than 400 equipment over two years . With a simple CRUD system in place, we logged our asset database with all equipment details in one place, so our staff could access from anywhere, anytime. It turned to be also an important tool for our financial team to have all the equipment lists when required for inventory audit routines. So the MVP turned to be an official product for our lab. More features were requested and for about four years we improved with several interesting features.
Below I detail some interesting features that helped/automated several manual tasks that the lab team had to face, specially when we run a lab with many machines and equipments that need to be managed.
Barcode Tracking. A lab staff armed with a cellphone equipped with a simple camera and a qrcode scanner app should be able to track the equipment, getting its details and even the next maintenance due date. In our scenario, we generated barcodes in line with UPCs (Universal Product Codes).
Schedule maintenance events. The lab staff can schedule the maintenance dates alerts for each equipment and its periodic repairs. Therefore, the system monitor the maintenance schedules and notify by email our lab engineering team about the maintenance due date coming, so they make everything prepared to perform the maintenance, and not get surprised or forget about the next maintenance.
Equipment Discard/Maintenance Handout Report. The lab staff generally needs to send the equipments to the maintenance to the manufacturer or the pipettes to perform a calibration. Furthermore, discarding some itens that are out-of-use. For those tasks, we replaced the handout form for an automated one. The users select the equipment(s) they want to send/discard, and the system produces a PDF with all the content required.
Power Plugs Lab Inventory. The infra-structure team needs to identify all the power/network plugs at our lab, so in case of any trouble, just locate at our inventory and go directly to the physical location. It saves time and gives us an overview with all plugs and related details. For instance, the plug is connected to a emergency no-break power bank ? Is it 220v ? Is it 20Amp or 10Amp?
Concluding remarks
Laboratory equipment has become a critical component of modern health laboratories, specially the automated ones. Genomika, a genetic testing lab, since from its start, had purchased more than 100 complex equipment that needed to be fully operational. The growth is not followed by the related management. The growth in capabilities to manage or maintain the lab equipment has lagged far behind the rate of deployment of equipment.
In addition to the traditional operational management, the patient results safety, operation performance in cost/efficient analysis, and risk evaluation and control are the important concerns for using lab equipment. By implementing an equipment inventory management solution, in our case an in-house one, named Genomika Labs, it efficiently improved the operation management of our devices continuously. We presented some features that save many hours of workload, and reduces the probability of errors on maintenance costs and malfunctioning devices due to lack of a maintenance scheduling plan. Any laboratory needs to address this issue, in order to promote the quality and safety of their lab results.
Special thanks
I would like to mention some special people that helped me at the development of this system.
- Our CEO and Executive Director João Bosco Oliveira Filho, who believed at our work, and allowed us to help some lab sectors that weren't the core of our business, but it really makes a difference in the quality and machines life-cycle over the years.
- Our first client, the one who started from ground zero our lab engineering department, Phd Dra. Mariana Brayner. She helped us during the first specifications and pains from their inventory control solution.
- All our lab staff team from Genomika who helped us suggesting us several ideas and improvement requests for our Genomika Labs.
- All alumni trainees (Filiphe Vilar, João Uchoa, Rayana Gonçalves), each one during their trainee period, helped with some code, maintenance or management.
- All infra-structure team who currently manage our inventory system: Victor Nunes , Lucas Eduardo e Leonardo Silva.
