“It’s automatic e-commerce for the restocking of chemicals and materials and consumables,” Higgins says. The information gathered from LANEXO about which chemicals are in storage or active use can in turn be fed into another Connected Lab tool, BrightLab, which provides an integrated system for managing laboratory purchasing. Some customers have seen time spent on chemical inventory cut by 70–80%, Higgins says. “We have this smartphone application, so you can see while you’re going through the lab that this chemical bottle is in that locker, and so forth.” In addition to avoiding waste, the tool allows scientists to spend more time at the bench and less time meticulously logging reagent usage-a particularly onerous task in highly regulated labs bound by good manufacturing practice (GMP) or other regulations. “It’s basically the GPS of the lab,” says Annette Hellbach, head of product for Connected Lab at MilliporeSigma. This can save time and money by helping researchers find chemicals faster and preventing the purchase of unnecessary, excess chemicals.Ĭonnected Lab’s LANEXO system solves this problem by making use of radio-frequency-identification (RFID)-tagged “smart seal” bottle labels, which can provide both the location and use history of every reagent. Without a clear sense of what reagents are on-site or where they’re stored, labs may waste money obtaining unnecessary, excess chemicals or allow perfectly useful reagents to expire.Ĭonnected Lab’s LANEXO system makes use of radio-frequency-identification (RFID)-tagged “smart seal” bottle labels to provide the location, expiration status, and use history of every reagent in the lab. “That means the data isn’t real time,” he says. Boehm notes that a recent survey revealed that 85% of respondents still use paper or spreadsheet software to track their inventory. Tracking the delivery, use, and expiration of research materials can be a daunting task for a small laboratory and quickly becomes overwhelming at a larger commercial organization. A lab runs on its reagents, and researchers must be able to count on having the chemicals they need when they need them. On the operations side, MilliporeSigma is tackling the challenge of inventory control. “So it’s tested internally, and we run pilot studies and make sure that the software we develop really answers the needs of our labs.”Ĭonnected Lab is focused primarily on two areas: laboratory operations and data management. “We don’t sell to external companies any product that we wouldn’t use,” says Alessandra Pepe, MilliporeSigma’s technology and innovation lead. Operating within MilliporeSigma carries a number of critical advantages, including access to an invaluable cohort of beta testers operating at the cutting edge of chemical and biomedical research. Clive Higgins, head of Connected Lab, MilliporeSigma Haydn Boehm, head of commercial marketing for Connected Lab at MilliporeSigma, says the goal is to identify “areas that you could optimize the current way of working using a digital product or technology.” Although ensconced within a multinational corporation with over 57,000 employees, Connected Lab operates in a more agile and entrepreneurial fashion to identify innovative opportunities to streamline laboratory operations. MilliporeSigma launched Connected Lab to develop digital tools that can help facilitate this evolution. In parallel, the far-reaching effects of the pandemic have created the urgent need for research staff to keep their projects up and running while working remotely. But change is coming, accelerated by the steady ascent of a new generation of tech-savvy lab workers who grew up with the internet and smartphones. “They are all desperate to embrace digital technology, and yet they are among the slowest to adopt,” says Higgins, who heads the Connected Lab program at MilliporeSigma. C live Higgins believes that the life sciences industry is at a crossroads.
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