Managing an inventory store that contains 100s of stock requires maintaining a list of details to keep the laboratory business running smoothly. However, recording and managing stock-related data manually is difficult.
While some labs utilize paper records to keep track of their inventory stock data, others leverage excel sheets. Either way, linking relevant data to each is challenging which makes backtracking tough and processing data even tougher. Whichever the approach, this data must be appropriately recorded and utilized to maintain smooth operations, better management, and prevent leakages.
Often labs are unaware of certain data handling issues and the leakages go untraceable leading to heavy losses. Therefore, it is vital for a lab to identify and study such issues associated with the laboratory’s inventory. With that leaning you can plan a better system for end-to-end management.
Here’s a list of problems to look at while handling inventory data management for your lab and their feasible solutions –
Mismatch of inventory stock in audits
Information mismatching is a common problem that usually occurs when entries are made manually or in excel. Also, having too many excel makes tallying absolutely tough. More importantly, mapping stock data against consumption or expiry is a challenging task when done manually with higher volume. Since the chances of mismatching are more, this not just hampers unused stock but affects inventory cost & expenditures in the long run; leading to unnecessary lab inventory leakage throughout.
Solution: Audit against system-generated reports
Having weekly/monthly audit reports helps. Although, to generate reports you require a robust lab inventory management system that records and manages end-to-end data through every inventory end – right from stock entry to consumption, purchases, and expiry.
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Lab Inventory Leakage due to mishandling of stock
Mishandling can be define in terms of two things that result in leakages in the inventory. This either indicates stock getting spoiled due to expiry since no proper recording was made against the expiry dates. Or, it also indiacte missing stock due to several reasons since no manual recording is made.
Solution: User wise stock management details
To keep stock details in check, having user wise stock management details can enable labs to trace leakages efficiently and help them make necessary decisions on how to plug them. Following such an approach, it will also prevent leakages for the inventory in the future. Learn how to tackle major challenges of inventory management in the lab.
User access control limitations can hamper lab data integrity
Access control is the key to disabling mismanagement. However, it becomes extremely difficult to tally certain stock-based information when there isn’t enough data available with a staff. Such lab data integrity issues impact inventory on the whole causing many other challenges of inventory management.
Solution: Give specific users access to specific areas of inventory management
Having control over user access to specific areas of inventory can resolve such problems and prevent data integrity issues in handling quantity as well as cost well. Usually, to meet such challenges, lab equipment management software can help as it can provide activity logs against the entire store areas that ease the cross-analysis process for the staff.
More time spend on recording data than managing inventory data management
Manual entries of day-to-day data for your inventory management software for laboratory are the leading, potential cause of errors throughout the system. The bigger the lab, the bigger the inventory that points to an increasing number of tasks for manual handling; thus bigger would be the rate of errors. Moreover, if every data for ‘n’ number of stock is manually manage by team, it will effect team efficiency. This hampers staff productivity over the course of time.
Solution: Use inventory software to manage everything
Having a lims inventory management solution is the key to preventing maximal manual entries rather focus your inventory team on decision-making. A system is a testimonial to process daily inventory data into meaningful information in the form of analytics, reports, and statistics that can help you have a better understanding of your inventory system on a broader scale. Staff can focus their efforts on studying and utilizing such information to plan better ideas for inventory management for their lab.
To summarize, use inventory management software for the diagnostics lab that streamlines and leverages your end-to-end data about stock, records consumption in real time, and minimizes errors throughout the cycle. An online lims inventory management solution offers dashboards, analytics, useful graphs, and stats and helps you process your day-to-day data easily with the help of reports. Plan a better strategy to prevent leakages in laboratory business and learn trends across your inventory purchases and stock management.
