Do you experience frequent inventory stockouts?
If you can’t proactively track inventory items, they may run out unexpectedly.
With experiment delays resulting from raw material shortages, you’ll experience workflow disruptions that stagnate your research processes.
A C&EN BrandLand survey revealed that 70% of scientists struggle to track the statuses of inventory items and subsequently faced stockouts because of it. This largely stemmed from poor inventory monitoring strategies.
However, you can leverage the best laboratory inventory management software to comprehensively monitor stock levels in real time and prevent stockouts.
With these systems also enabling you to analyze usage trends of various chemicals and consumables in your laboratory, they also make it easy for you to perform demand forecasting and stock your resources optimally to meet any surges in demand.
In this article, we’ll discuss the best laboratory inventory management systems for efficiency in 2024 that can help you accelerate innovation and productivity.
Quick summary:
- FindMolecule – Best for automating inventory data entry.
- LabWare – Best for comprehensive inventory tracking.
- Quartzy – Best for managing inventory requests.
- BIOVIA CISPro – Best for managing hazardous materials.
- Genemond – Best for visualizing inventory levels.
Let’s get started.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBB9GhJOyU
Want to make your laboratory more time-efficient?
FindMoleclule gives you a chemical inventory tracking system with barcode scanning, which I believe makes it one of the best laboratory inventory management systems to help you record and update inventory information faster.
With FindMolecule’s chemical structure search feature, you can use a drawing application to find products using their structures.
Additionally, you get a safety dashboard with data like safety data sheets & H&P sentences, which can help you run your lab safely. It also gives you risk assessment reports that indicate the risks of using various chemicals in your inventory.
Best features:
- FindMolecule comes with a comprehensive order tracking system, which allows you to monitor inventory orders as well as their statuses. Besides enabling you to order materials more effortlessly, it also enables you to plan your workflow better.
- You also get an electronic lab notebook, which allows you to replace paper-based note-taking with a digital alternative that automatically tracks the time of entries. So it helps you track the progress of projects more coherently.
- FindMolecule also enables you to monitor whether suppliers, products, processes, and services adhere to regulatory policies. With this information, you can identify and cut out compliance risks to avoid fines and sanctions.
Pricing
- 14-day free trial.
- Contact FindMolecule for pricing.
Verdict
FindMolecule has a robust barcode scanning system, which allows you to automate data entry processes so that you can improve productivity for your laboratory. Additionally, you get robust risk & safety dashboard analytics, which helps you mitigate risk by recommending personal protective equipment for handling various chemicals.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD3K6Oso8dc
LabWare has advanced inventory tracking features.
It allows you to track vendor information, expiry dates, location, and even the quantities of consumables. This information can help you forecast inventory demands to avoid unexpected supply shortages and minimize downtimes.
What’s more, you get advanced data visualization, which enables you to spot trends and improve quality control for inventory management processes.
You also get configurable workflows and dashboards that you can easily personalize to display various process indicators that are important to your workflow. This enables you to remove distractions, channel focus, and improve your productivity.
Best features:
- With LabWare’s out-of-the-box functionalities, you can create inventory items quickly and become time-efficient. It also has fast inventory pulling that enables you to manage stock quantities and satisfy inventory requests more effortlessly.
- It gives you a cloud-hosted inventory management system that you can use to get real-time updates on the status of your inventory items. Alternatively, you can choose its self-hosted alternative to ensure you retain full control over your data.
- LabWare also comes with an analyst certification feature, which allows you to track the qualifications of inventory managers. This helps you ensure that inventory personnel have up-to-date skills for managing your inventory systems.
Pricing
- No free trial.
- Contact LabWare for pricing.
Verdict
If you have complex inventory processes that require you to record intricate item details, I believe LabWare is the best laboratory inventory management software in 2024 for your needs. That said, you may notice performance dips with its web-based version, more so if your laboratory doesn’t have a reliable internet connection to work with.
Schedule a demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7mG9XuN7LI
Keen on improving inventory request management?
Quartzy gives you a centralized inventory request dashboard, which makes it a great laboratory inventory management system to help you process commodity requests quickly and eliminate workflow delays for your laboratory.
Crucially, you also get monthly spending reports which enable you to track inventory spending patterns so that you can optimize your budget better.
Jimma University established that 12.94% of laboratory commodities are wasted annually because of expiration and damage. This emphasizes the importance of Quartzy’s expiration tracking features, which can help you reduce wastage.
Best features:
- Quartzy has advanced order request tracking features, which help you respond to inventory item requests centrally. Additionally, it also notifies lab workers of fulfilled requests, which enables you to streamline your approval workflows.
- It also integrates with NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Slack, among other underlying tools that you may be using to track inventory data. With this integration, you can automatically sync data to avoid tedious manual data migration processes.
- Quartzy has a shop model, which links to over 1,800 trusted brands that have been cross-examined by life science product experts. This saves you from having to manually vet lab suppliers while helping you improve compliance.
Pricing
- 14-day free trial.
- Starting plan: $159 per month.
Verdict
If you struggle to track inventory requests for your laboratory, Quartzy’s centralized request management dashboard can help you make the process more efficient. Nonetheless, I’ve noticed their starting plan supports just five users and it costs you $29 for each extra user, so it may be an expensive solution if you run a large team.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvKI9FvJ1F4
BIOVIA CISPro is a chemical inventory management tool.
Its multi-site, multi-tier location hierarchy helps you ensure that you file the right chemicals in the right place. So by improving the organization of consumables, it can help you retrieve lab items faster.
You also get pre-populated vendor catalog features, which enable you to accelerate and improve the accuracy of your data entry processes.
Struggling to comply with Tier II regulations? ,
With its automated Tier II reporting features, I find that BIOVIA CISpro is the best laboratory inventory management software to help you improve regulatory compliance.
Best features:
- It gives you standardized inventory tracking and management procedures that you can easily replicate across several sites. This makes it a great solution if you want to improve inventory management for multiple labs under your brand.
- BIOVIA CISPro also has real-time inventory tracking features, which allow you to monitor fluctuating stock levels. With this data, you can avoid stockouts and even improve how you replenish and allocate inventory items for your laboratory.
- You get specialized modules for regulatory list management, which you can use to monitor the location and stock levels of controlled substances and hazardous materials. This helps your laboratory to enforce compliance with regulatory laws.
Pricing:
- 7-day free trial.
- Contact BIOVIA CISPro for pricing.
Verdict
If your lab deals with a variety of controlled and hazardous chemicals and substances, BIOVIA CISPro is an excellent solution to help you improve management and compliance. That said, I’ve noticed that it lacks important integrations for various lab tools, and so you may need to manually export inventory data during installation.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVfl-01z_Jg
Genemod elevates how you manage lab samples.
It gives you a virtual freezer, which is a digital representation of how you store samples in shelves, cryo boxes, and racks in the real world. With this feature, you can quickly locate inventory items and accelerate your research processes.
Genemod also enables you to bookmark reagents that you frequently use, so that you can easily initiate reorder processes for your laboratory.
Additionally, you can set automatic notification triggers that initiate when monitored items violate certain thresholds. So I rate it among the best laboratory inventory management systems to help you avoid stockouts.
Best features:
- Genemod gives you custom item types and even ready-to-go templates that you can use to create inventory categories and group related items. This can help you break down complex inventory processes to simplify management.
- You can also create personalized oversight analytics for essential stock items in your laboratory like glassware, chemicals, and solvents. This can help you streamline restocking to avoid running out of materials during critical research.
- Genemod gives you comprehensive order logs, which allow you to track essential attachments, receipts, and comments on various orders. So it can help you improve accountability & collaboration with colleagues during order tracking.
Pricing:
- 30-day free trial.
- Contact Genemod for pricing.
Verdict
With Genemod’s virtual freezer, you can dynamically visualize the levels of inventory items in your lab and easily find consumables in the real world using digital replicas. Nevertheless, I’ve noticed that the platform has very advanced automation features that require in-depth programming knowledge, and this can steep the learning curve.
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FAQ section
What is a laboratory inventory management system?
It’s any tool that you can use to track the levels of various stock items like equipment, consumables, and chemicals so that you can optimize your stocking processes.
Moreover, you’ll find that the best laboratory inventory management systems can also help you track raw materials from suppliers and improve supply chain visibility.
What are the key features of a laboratory inventory management system?
A great tool should track the lot and expiration dates for items so that it’s easy for your laboratory to troubleshoot tests that produce unexpected results.
Another very important feature is the ability to track and provide highly specific details on where you store your reagents so that they are easy to find.
How do I choose a great inventory management system for my laboratory?
First, you should sign up for a demo or free trial to determine if the software is easy to use so that you can pick it up quickly and minimize downtime.
Also a great laboratory inventory management software should have advanced analytics that will help you forecast item demands more effectively.
How much does an excellent laboratory inventory management system cost?
While pricing plans may start at $159 per month or more, the exact sum typically depends on the complexity of your needs and the extent of reporting features.
Additionally, you may also find that the initial software acquisition cost can go up if you require custom software integrations although these tend to deliver excellent ROI.
What are the benefits of laboratory inventory management systems?
With a great inventory system, you’ll reduce the risk of stalling batch processing tests because you’ll be able to order stocks ahead of time and avoid supplier delays.
What’s more, it can help you create clear audit trails for compliance purposes and may have automation features that can help you reduce routine inventory work.
Conclusion
Inefficient inventory management can cost you dearly.
If you manually record inventory data, you can easily make various data entry mistakes.
In addition to inaccuracy risks, you can also waste a lot of time that you could have spent on valuable research work if you manually catalog lab inventories.
As a matter of fact, an Erplain survey revealed that 66% of laboratories had invoicing errors in 2022, with the biggest contributor to the problem being manual inventory recordkeeping.
This is why it’s important that you use the best laboratory inventory management software in 2024 to help you automate iterative inventory cataloging tasks.
In particular, I recommend FindMolecule if you want to comprehensively automate inventory data entry and improve productivity for your laboratory.
With this software, you can monitor stock levels centrally to prevent cases of understocking and overstocking. It also creates very clear audit trails that can help you improve regulatory compliance.
Interesting Related Article: “Medical Laboratory Analytics: Harnessing Data Insights with Software Solutions“
