© Copyright Acquisition International 2024 - All Rights Reserved.

Article Image - How to Manage Inventory in Your Laboratory (and Why it’s So Important)
Posted 1st June 2022

How to Manage Inventory in Your Laboratory (and Why it’s So Important)

In a laboratory setting, inventory management is a crucial, albeit boring process. You need to be aware of stock on-hand, inventory available for purchase, and all of the equipment, consumables, supplies, reagents, and other critical assets that are housed in your laboratory. In this article, we’ll share with you some helpful tips and recommendations on […]

Mouse Scroll AnimationScroll to keep reading

Let us help promote your business to a wider following.

How to Manage Inventory in Your Laboratory (and Why it’s So Important)

In a laboratory setting, inventory management is a crucial, albeit boring process. You need to be aware of stock on-hand, inventory available for purchase, and all of the equipment, consumables, supplies, reagents, and other critical assets that are housed in your laboratory.

In this article, we’ll share with you some helpful tips and recommendations on inventory management in your lab, so that you can make the most efficient use of your available space, and reduce errors when it comes to monitoring equipment, inventory, and handling of bio samples.

A Quick Checklist for Lab Inventory Management:

You can reference this checklist while optimizing your inventory management system, but we’ll also explore each bullet point more in-depth further below.

Ensure an accurate stock list. Acknowledge your min-max stock levels. Categorize your inventory items. Strategically organize physical space. Have management procedures in place.

Ensuring an accurate stock list:

Inventorying a laboratory is no easy task, but it’s an essential process to keep your laboratory functioning optimally. So you should start with an accurate stock list that lays out your requirements, and you can build out from there. When it comes to developing your inventory list, take a look at the different parts of your laboratory, and write down a list of:

Items in low-turnover or excessive quantity. Items that are in high-demand. This will help when you do stock audits, which you should also perform regularly to check for accurate inventory and accurate in-stock allocation of inventory.

Use inventory tracking software to help you with managing lab inventory effectively – it will reduce most human errors, and give you far better insight into what stock is actually in-hand.

3) Categorizing your inventory items.

Once you have a correct min-max inventory count, it’s time to categorize your inventory items. This will help a lot if you’re using inventory management software, so that you can easily add tags to items such as consumables, hazardous substances, and reagents.

It’s a great way of getting an overview of all items in sub-categories, for a more minute level of analysis, and you can use this to highlight your inventory bottlenecks, as well as increase efficiency in the handling of laboratory assets.

4) Strategically organizing physical space.

Having an efficient inventory management system isn’t very helpful if your lab is cluttered, messy, and disorganized. So you should aim to strategically organize your physical space, as well as your labware in-hand, with the aim of maximizing efficiency.

You should have dedicated shelving or storage that contains the items you will need to be able to test, and this area should be clearly labelled so that it is clear where all of your lab equipment is located. Also be sure to disaster-proof your inventory storage areas.

You should also have dedicated labware units (equipment containers) in the lab for holding your equipment and other lab supplies. These should be labelled as well, with the lab’s name so that it is clear which items belong to which lab, and what items are being stored.

5) Have inventory management procedures in place.

Your staff should be familiar with the various procedures that are necessary for inventory management, and these should be clearly communicated to them. This way, you can ensure that there are no gaps in any knowledge or procedure, and that the staff are all working in the same direction.

This will help you in the future, as you can compare the effectiveness of different protocols or procedures, and you can easily identify bottlenecks and points of friction in your inventory management processes.

Categories: News


You Might Also Like
Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
Solana: The Rising Star Paving the Way for Bitcoin’s Evolution
Finance
15/08/2023Solana: The Rising Star Paving the Way for Bitcoin’s Evolution

In the vast and dynamic realm of cryptocurrencies, one project has been gaining significant attention and acclaim: Solana. With its exceptional scalability and innovative features, Solana has emerged as a rising star in the crypto space.

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
Five Strategy Tips For Business Event Planning
News
30/03/2022Five Strategy Tips For Business Event Planning

Events are a critical part of the life of a business. Most businesses are launched with an event and host numerous others throughout their life. These events help businesses generate leads or land new prospects.

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
Closing The Gender Gap In Cybersecurity Could Boost UK Economy By £12.6bn
Leadership
20/03/2020Closing The Gender Gap In Cybersecurity Could Boost UK Economy By £12.6bn

Increasing the number of women working in cybersecurity could boost the UK economy by £12.6 billion according to a new report from Tessian, the human layer security company. The report also reveals that closing the 24% gender pay gap in the UK cybersecurity i

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
Going Beyond Zero Trust: How Far Should Organisations Go to Protect Their Information?
Innovation
18/06/2024Going Beyond Zero Trust: How Far Should Organisations Go to Protect Their Information?

Organisations are under extreme pressure when it comes to protecting data. The range of cybersecurity threats is constantly evolving as the world becomes increasingly reliant on technology.

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
We Bring the Show to You
Innovation
07/06/2017We Bring the Show to You

Simply Smiley Productions are experts at bringing the magic of theatre to children and recently received the Most Outstanding Children’s Entertainment Company award, as part of the 2016 Global Excellence Awards.

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
What is Estate Planning And Why Is It Critical For Property Owners
Finance
20/09/2020What is Estate Planning And Why Is It Critical For Property Owners

Estate planning is essentially critical for those who are property owners in their later years, and there’s some good reasons for that classification too. Here’s why estate planning is critical for property owners.

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
IRIDEOS Acquires Enter
Finance
04/07/2018IRIDEOS Acquires Enter

IRIDEOS Enhances Recent Strategic Acquisitions With Purchase of Leading Italian-Based Network and Cloud Services Provider

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
Rise Up Elevates Personalised Learning With Domoscio Acquisition
M&A
07/05/2024Rise Up Elevates Personalised Learning With Domoscio Acquisition

Rise Up, Europe's leading integrated learning solution with more than five million active learners globally, has announced its strategic acquisition of Domoscio, a French expert in Adaptive Learning.

Read Full PostRead - Eye Icon
Cybersecurity on the high seas
Innovation
26/04/2019Cybersecurity on the high seas

With their preference for hijacks, machine-gun-point robbery and hostage-taking ransoms, 21st-century pirates on the high seas are a far cry from the pirates that we have all heard and read about.



Our Trusted Brands

Acquisition International is a flagship brand of AI Global Media. AI Global Media is a B2B enterprise and are committed to creating engaging content allowing businesses to market their services to a larger global audience. We have 14 unique brands, each of which serves a specific industry or region. Each brand covers the latest news in its sector and publishes a digital magazine and newsletter which is read by a global audience.

Arrow