During the 7th Lab Asset and Facility Management Summit, industry experts shared their insights, including various challenges, opportunities, and connected solutions that are making quantifiable changes in the industry. One such expert—a 30-year industry veteran and a former scientist turned lab manager and MachineQ customer—opened up about the trials of streamlining lab operations while striking the right balance of productivity and ensuring scientists have the resources they need during a panel session.
Below is a recap of the panel discussion, capturing the speaker's insights and experiences as they addressed key themes around:
Turning Blind Spots into Bright Spots: Asset Visibility
According to a recent industry survey MachineQ commissioned through Censuswide, an independent research firm, 62% of respondents said that improved asset tracking and location visibility in labs would mitigate downtime. Reflecting on this issue, the customer outlined several challenges labs face with unplanned downtime, and how IoT enhanced operations:
- To improve asset sharing and tracking across facilities, the lab started tagging equipment with IoT sensors. This all began with the customer’s struggle to find pipettes for quarterly calibration, but the company quickly saw broader potential. During a recent move of 1,100+ pieces of equipment from several lab facilities into a new centralized location, tagging provided location insights that made the transition smoother. While building out their new space, the company also added iPads for vendors to quickly access asset information. Now, vendors and scientists can easily locate assets, speeding up service and reducing downtime—helping the company get PMs done quickly, and get back to science.
- Once on the IoT train, the customer also sought to improve protocol around reporting malfunctioning equipment. Scientists often encounter malfunctioning equipment but fail to report it. The speaker discussed using IoT technology to simplify the process by automating equipment status updates with real-time reporting of equipment issues, enhancing lab managers' visibility and enabling quicker problem resolution.
Getting the Most from Assets: Smarter Utilization
A recent MachineQ survey reported 44 percent of survey respondents cited asset utilization as a “key challenge” contributing to unplanned downtime and inefficient workflows. Addressing this hot topic from the panel discussion, the customer highlighted the challenge of accessing and consolidating utilization data across thousands of assets, and how IoT—and strong team collaboration—can mitigate these issues:
- By automating and centralizing utilization data with connected solutions, lab managers can make more informed decisions — even if assets show utilization differently, as some consume power, vibrate, or require direct interaction. Since not all equipment can track the same way for utilization, the customer needed a way to know whether specific equipment has been used and have all that data pulled into one place. Utilizing this data, the customer was able to make better decisions for how the company spends money, and ensure the scientists have what they need.
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- Additionally, strong collaboration with scientists remains crucial as anecdotal evidence adds valuable context to the data, according to the customer. Together, they provide comprehensive insights that can help labs improve CapEx planning and more effectively manage service contracts to reduce costs. Furthermore, in large pharma companies, departments often operate independently and are unaware of each other's resources, which is why this collaboration and centralized oversight can help optimize company-wide resource allocation and decision-making.
Gaining Data Confidence: Drive Better Decision-Making
Leveraging data to streamline purchasing decisions was a key theme of the panel discussion, with all speakers emphasizing the need for data automation and accessibility. This need is easily met with connected solutions, as the MachineQ customer explained:
- Aging equipment contributes to downtime, yet scientists often prioritize buying the latest technology over replacing older equipment. With better data on equipment downtime and costs, lab managers can convince scientists of the importance of replacing old equipment—reducing breakdowns and expenses, according to the customer.
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- Additionally, by using IoT sensors to monitor dry ice bin usage, the customer discovered many bins were only opened on the day ice was delivered, revealing that a lot of the ice was sublimating rather than being used. This information allowed the customer to reduce their order quantity, slashing costs and waste while supporting sustainability initiatives.
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Small Steps with Big Impact: Sustainable Strategies
Another notable theme from the panel: sustainability. Following the success of the dry ice utilization use case, the customer highlighted other ways they use, and plan to use, IoT to advance the company’s ESG initiatives:
- Previously, the company had a courier service scheduled every two weeks to pick up assets for calibration. The customer discovered that cadence was not only ineffective for calibration, but often a waste of time and travel for vendors. Due to the ease and accessibility to deploy and test new use cases with scalable solutions, the customer was able to explore IoT-enabled technology to enable needs-based scheduling—significantly reducing unnecessary tech travel from wasted trips and repeat visits.
Making the Case: Obtaining Leadership Buy-in
Pin-pointing areas for improvement and lab optimization is one challenge, while implementing solutions can be an entirely different hurdle—that's why the panel speakers emphasized the importance of demonstrating a clear value proposition to obtain leadership buy-in:
- For this MachineQ customer, there was a clear objective to condense labs from seven to three and move thousands of essential assets to a centralized facility. But how does one company oversee a move on such a large scale? With IoT-enabled solutions, according to the customer. And with scalable solutions readily available to deploy, this customer was able to tack on new implementations as each use case arose—vastly improving operations and mitigating longstanding, company-wide challenges.
From Hidden Costs to Clear Wins
Gaining visibility into assets’ location and utilization can open a whole world of opportunities. Enhance operations with improved visibility, support data-driven decisions, improve operations and streamline compliance—all with IoT technology. Discover how to unlock your assets’ full potential and make every move count, with insights that turn questions into strategic answers. Learn how with MachineQ
