Research Lab Inventory
How can we help your lab run better? It’s a question we’re always asking! Today, we’re excited to announce a new inventory module that’s free to use.
Our initial focus has been on procurement through a unique marketplace (it’s how we save your lab money), chemical and pricing search engines. Below, we’ve outlined just a couple of reasons we’ve added inventory to Lab Spend.
Save Time
Most labs are currently using a mixture of Excel and shared folders with PDF files to manage their inventory and safety data sheets (SDS). Until now, it’s been one of best solutions, but it has drawbacks such as being difficult to search, share and maintain. Due to these problems, research labs will usually dedicate two or more days each year updating their inventories. This is not only a loss in productivity, but also a compliance concern the inventory drifts over the course of a year (or longer!).
Inventory is a natural progression within Lab Spend. Currently, you make a request, which is ordered then received and that item enters your inventory.
Once in your inventory, you can add SDS, certification of analysis files and more depending on the type of product. For example, chemicals you can add CAS numbers while equipment has service and calibration notifications. Notice that by setting up notifications your lab keeps you up to date instead of trying to remember everything.
Location
A drag and drop user interface allows you to easily stay organized. Need to move a box of plasmids between freezers? Easy enough just drag and drop!
What’s more, you can now create multiple sub-locations in your inventory system. For example in the above image displays: Lab -> Bay2 -> Freezer -> Box1, which allows for flexibility and specificity for more complicated inventory needs.
Locations can also be used as a filter to help you find items in your lab. You know an item is in your freezer, but unsure where – click on the Freezer location and only the items within that freezer will be displayed.
Speaking of freezers, we have special layouts such as freezer boxes that is a grid layout, which you can set whether that’s 3×9 or 25×25.
Tags
Tagging allows for many options when location, filtering and sorting don’t quite work.
Tag items by project, unique attributions such as HAZMAT, acid or base, expired items or perhaps an item that you borrowed from another lab. You can also instantly filter tags by clicking on them. You need multiple tags on a single item? No problem.
Search, Sort and Filter
Quickly (did we mention we’re using the latest web development technology so your results are really fast) locate your lab supplies and chemicals by name, quantity, type, date added, date updated, payment status and more! You can use filtering and sorting in combination to easily find the item you need.
What chemicals are in my lab that don’t have a SDS file? You can now find out in seconds.
We hope this short overview gives you an idea of why we’re excited and think you should be as well! Site is free to use, sign up at Lab Spend.