Whether you run a lab, a research facility or a drug or medical device manufacturing facility you have some amount of inventory. Reagents, pipettes, tips, sample trays, and other lab supplies and critical inventory. The question is how do you manage it? Does it work smoothly today? Does it cause you any problems? If you could wave your magic wand what would be different?
In many facilities with a few people a clipboard hanging on the wall in the storeroom provides all the inventory management they need – and that is great if you fit that model.
What happens is companies grow both in numbers of people and also volumes and dollars of inventory. That clipboard turns into more clipboards, spreadsheets and people, and , many times, managers who are spending significant amounts of time chasing inventory and supplies , all so their people can focus on the work at hand. Many times this means numerous purchase orders every month or every week, UPS Red and Blue charges or other expedited shipping charges, down time in labs or production because the needed materials, reagents or whatever are not available when needed.
Biotech Vending helps you get those types of issues under control, and many more, so you can get back to what you do best – running your business.
Vending Tutorial, a simple vending story–
Think of a candy bar machine. You want a candy bar in position C2, you put in your money and key in C2; “whir whir” the candy bar drops out the bottom and you get to eat it. That is point of use inventory. It is right there in the machine waiting for you or anyone else to go get it. Now, with modern technology the machine lets the restocker know they are down one candy bar and at the end of the day places an order to replace everything that was used that day. With some history the candy bar stocker has a good idea how many of each kind he needs to put in every week so as not to run out.
Now, what if that candy bar machine actually dispensed everything, or at least most everything you need in your facility, whether that is supplies, reagents, gloves, pipette tips or critical spares to keep equipment running and had just the right amount, all the time? By keeping track of what is used and when you always have enough, and on the other hand you also don’t have machines full or slow or dead inventory because the software is helping to track that. I.e. you don’t want 20 boxes of candy in the machine when only 1 gets bought every month. They might start to taste bad, plus you have your money tied up in something where you will not see any return. On the other hand you want to make sure to have enough of the popular items so you don’t run out or stock out and disrupt business while you wait to expedite shipping and cut lead times.
Biotech Vending ties the appropriate kind of vending machine(s) depending on what the item is and how fast moving it is ,along with intelligent software, to track this for you. The software also can tie into your current accounting and ERP/MRP systems.
When your tech needs a reagent they go to the machine, key in the description, and find what they want. The machine allows them to take exactly what is needed, no more, no less and it knows exactly who and when they took it, for what purpose and a host of other details ,such as, job number, department and whatever other custom data you might want to track to better allocate and control costs.
Reports are available to show not only what is getting used, but by whom, how much, and when to reorder. Again, you can use as much or as little of the data as you want.
Now that you know what you are running low on and what the lead times are, you can reorder at a time that reduces or eliminates stock outs. The system also easily allows for refilling the machine accurately.
In addition, it is possible to use a FIFO system, track lot numbers and expiration dates, control who has access to what materials, and much more.
Call us to set up your no-cost site analysis at 858-386-8717, or for more detail on the concept of Industrial Vending in general, please go to the AutoCrib website at www.autocrib.com