Ready for What’s Next in Your Lab?

In this series, we review considerations for keeping your lab at the forefront of science. As you adjust to living and working in a pandemic and anticipate future global and geopolitical events, Waters remains dedicated to supporting your business and unlocking the potential of your science. Our holistic separations solutions and expert support help you innovate faster, more collaboratively, and more confidently. We’ll be sharing our considerations through our blogs and would value hearing yours.

 
Shedding light on instruments and efficiency

While the quest for finding better, faster, and more cost-effective resources has been a part of your efficiency-improving requirements over the years, there is a newfound urgency to work even smarter given the global crises we face today.

Some of the impediments that are holding laboratories back from achieving higher efficiency include fluctuations in program priorities, asset availability, and unexpected to-dos. How do you focus your priorities and get more control over your science so that you and your team remain productive no matter what your day brings?

Following are some ways to deliver better efficiency and results – with a focus on the role your laboratory equipment plays.

Conduct your due diligence by taking stock

You have a good estimate of which assets you and your team are using most. However, you are at a point where precision matters – where counting on your best estimate is not enough. Having data on what assets are being used, how much, and by whom gains efficiencies in planning projects and instrument needs, and in identifying the necessary resources to support the workflow.

The challenge today is not a lack of data, but rather accurate, complete, and aggregated data that can easily be analyzed for meaningful insight.

Efficiency builder

Empower™ Chromatography Data System (CDS) provides just that. Its laboratory analytics capabilities are built from your comprehensive, real-time data.  The platform streamlines processes by assembling and displaying critical chromatography performance metrics in easy-to-view analytics dashboards. The dynamic relationship between your instruments, analysts, and workflow is accessible and understandable:

• Monitor chromatography instrumentation utilization and performance data for faster, more qualified decisions on laboratory and business operations
• Make better use of existing assets
• Uncover areas for cost savings
• Drive zero workflow bottlenecks
• Accelerate decision-making

Proactively optimize while trimming inefficiencies

Once you have and understand your utilization data, it’s helpful to take a closer look at the optimization of your assets and consider new approaches for achieving higher utilization efficiencies.

With personnel costs representing a large majority of a lab’s budget, making sure the team is adequately trained on your lab’s equipment and ready to take on the latest projects is a productivity booster. The sooner chromatographic and mass spectral functions are mastered, the sooner your lab will deliver consistently desired results – and ensure the efficient return on investment your organization expects.

One training area that we are seeing high activity in today is compliance training. It is every organization’s responsibility to comply with the regulations and provide the data to prove it. Organizations face substantial financial impact if they are unable to quickly provide regulators with the required data, including documented evidence of compliance. Being in compliance with both your own and government regulatory standards results in improved productivity through less downtime due to data integrity questions. Making sure that your results are reliable, accurate, and trustworthy is vital.

Efficiency builders

Waters is your partner to help you confidently meet your compliance requirements. We offer a variety of web-based and classroom compliance courses that keep you up to date on the latest technologies and compliance services available for your laboratory. We also provide courses on performing laboratory system qualification and software qualification using Waters’ self-directed automated or conventional qualification tools.

Beyond compliance training, Waters Educational Services team offers a full suite of training courses to leverage the value of our systems and drive higher user proficiency and results efficiency. Most of our specialists are Field Application Scientists holding PhDs with more than 10 years of teaching experience, available to help:

• Optimize the value of your Waters Liquid Chromatography (LC) and Mass Spectrometry (MS) investments
• Reduce your total cost of ownership
• Facilitate adoption and deployment of all users

Each year, we help thousands of users acquire, maintain, and improve their technical and chromatography skills. Consider us an extension of your team to serve as a knowledgeable partner throughout your instrument’s lifecycle, with content spanning foundational, advanced, and expert topics as skills evolve.

Build a sustainable strategy to help carry your science forward

Laboratories must help their organizations stay competitive by staying a step ahead. When you are called on to complete a last-minute analysis or quickly scale and build capacity for a new project, the last thing you need is equipment that cannot meet that challenge.

Over time, your LC and MS systems will reach a point in which their value is undermined by their costs to repair, their throughput is less than what newer technologies offer, and their ease of use may not be so easy anymore. These all contribute to lower efficiency and can also add levels of frustration to an already burdened staff. It has been reported that outdated technologies can impact team morale, making people feel frustrated and undervalued. Who needs that in today’s demanding laboratory environments?

As laboratories assess costs of equipment ownership, a more critical eye is being placed on the mantra that keeping old but ‘reliable’ instrumentation is the right thing to do. Actively managing assets and monitoring their performance with a formal plan provides the underpinning knowledge required for a sustainable replacement strategy. By building an asset replacement plan you:

• Mitigate the risk of an over-aged installed base
• Ensure you keep pace with your throughput and scaling needs
• Support continual regulatory compliance
• Manage repair costs wisely
• Plan effectively for smooth technology transitions

A recent Waters webinar poll revealed that modernizing technology to maximize efficiency and minimize risk were key drivers for replacing their LC instruments.

Deciding when and how to make sound new technology investments then becomes more objective and data driven. Your replacement plan should at minimum include:

• A detailed recap of every technology asset that includes operating systems, applications, pertinent specifications
• A schedule of any updates and service and maintenance records
• Where the asset fits within the method or workflow
• Anticipated date of the asset no longer being supported by the manufacturer

Efficiency builders

In a previous blog, we reviewed some practical considerations to help you decide whether upgrading your technology makes smart business sense. With the pressure on to improve efficiency, there is no better time than now to look at the challenges of maintaining your older instrumentation. When you upgrade your assets, you upgrade your entire business efficiency. With the Waters FlexUP Technology Renewal Program, you easily and cost-effectively replace your older instruments with state-of-the-art technology to stay protected from obsolescence and its high degree of risk.

Whether you have a Waters system or another manufacturer’s, you’ll eliminate the issues associated with older instrumentation or software by cost-effectively managing the lifecycle of your laboratory’s assets and:

• Modernize your instrumentation
• Improve data quality
• Increase capacity
• Lower cost of ownership
• Mitigate risk
• Keep pace with the rapid rate of change

Our new payment plan, FlexCAPITAL* Lab Solutions, supports the ongoing needs of your laboratory while satisfying your budgetary challenges:

• All-inclusive monthly payment plan for predictable budget forecasting
• Simplify multi-system acquisitions with manageable monthly expense
• Accelerate ROI with monthly payments versus large capital expenditures
• No initial capital outlay
• Eliminate unanticipated maintenance expenses and reduce downtime

*FlexCAPITAL payment plan options and availability may vary by country. Other restrictions may apply. Contact Waters or your local Waters rep for details. Subject to Credit Approval.

As you seek better ways to quickly respond to your changing requirements, Waters is here to help you tackle whatever comes next. Discover how our comprehensive solutions, industry-leading informatics, and flexible services are designed to work in harmony and deliver synergistic value toward improving your efficiency. Contact us today for a no obligation assessment.