Maintaining The Standards Of Quality In Your Research Lab

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Whether you keep your lab afloat by sourcing funding from grants or you provide research and testing services directly for clients, being able to demonstrate quality and consistency in your results is crucial. However, you can only do that if you’re running a lab that runs on specific standards that ensure quality. Here, we’re going to look at the standards that you need to make sure that you’re upholding, as well as how to maintain them. 

Maintain Strong Standard Operating Procedures

The backbone of a quality lab is the strength of its written standard operating procedures, or SOPs. These ensure that tasks and tests are done exactly the same way every single time, no matter who is doing the work. They systematize the steps of every test, maintaining a level of consistency that improves data reliability, reduces errors, and also makes it a lot easier to train new staff to do those same tasks, rather than having to rely on individual memory and experience. Good SOPs also include quality control checks that can make sure that lab results are verified and ready to show off to clients and review boards. Good SOPs also help labs meet their quality and compliance expectations.

Maintain And Calibrate Your Equipment

Of course, you’re going to see a lot more variability in your research results if the equipment you use for testing is in a different condition compared to the last time that you used it. Regular maintenance and calibration on a routine schedule isn’t just about maintaining the quality of your equipment or preserving its lifespan, but also about making sure that testing conditions are the exact same (or close to it) every time that you do the test. Skipping the steps of taking care of your equipment can lead to inconsistent results, invalid data, and even costly downtime if your equipment goes past the breaking point. Don’t treat preventative maintenance as an added expense; treat it as a vital cost-saving measure that keeps the lab productive and avoids invalid results.

Source High-Quality Research Materials

The quality of your lab’s output is also going to depend largely on the quality of inputs. The supplies that you use, such as your reagents and materials, should be sourced from reliable suppliers with the right documentation, like USA-tested research peptides. If you’re cutting corners with cheaper suppliers with less rigorously tested materials, then you’re going to compromise the results of your own testing as well. Evaluate your vendors carefully, make sure that their materials live up to the standards of your lab, and try to maintain consistent sourcing when you do find that quality to maintain the integrity of your lab’s data in the long term.

Implement Strong Data Management

Practical and physical standards in the lab are vital, but data management is becoming an increasingly important part of modern research, as well. With the help of a laboratory information management system, your team is much better able to track samples, results, and workflows in a structured, centralized platform. Rather than having to use spreadsheets or handwritten notes, you can ensure that your team has one central source to go to whenever they need to check the data. This improves how you’re able to trace your results back to their sources, such as the specific materials, methods, and staffing used, and also makes it a lot easier to report those results to clients as well.

Make Safety And Compliance Your Priorities

There are few things more fundamental to research lab success than keeping your workplace as safe and compliant with regulations as possible. Aside from protecting your staff and equipment, clear safety protocols also reduce the risks of accidents and shutdowns that compromise the results of your research and data. With the right training and accessible safety equipment, you create a culture of workers who are much more responsible, and thus more likely to keep up with your standards. Compliance with relevant regulations and guidelines is equally important, especially when working with hazardous materials or regulated industries. Treating safety and compliance with the seriousness that they demand also spreads the qualities of professionalism and accountability to your team, which helps uphold standards of all kinds.

Optimize The Lab For Workflow

An efficient lab and one that’s able to work with clarity of purpose is one that spends a lot less time dealing with confusion and bottlenecks. This applies to the physical layout of the lab, ensuring easy movement paths for staff members and samples alike, as well as the mental layout of your projects. Mapping out your processes to ensure that projects are able to move from one step to the other, with clear role definitions and hand-off points between those steps, can help you ensure that work is done more quickly and efficiently without sacrificing the accuracy and validity of the results or the safety involved in the work. When workflows are organized, staff spend less time searching for materials or clarifying responsibilities, so make sure that your lab is always in the process of refining its work processes.

Cultivating The Right Workplace Culture

Implementing many of the tips above will naturally improve the standards of work you expect from your team, which can help to elevate your workplace culture. However, you should go beyond that. While holding your team to certain standards is important, you should support and uplift them to help them become more engaged and able to meet those standards. Showing respect and gratitude for the work that they do, as well as providing the training they need, can make them less likely to make mistakes and more likely to raise concerns and suggestions that can benefit the whole lab.

If you’re not able to uphold the standards of quality mentioned above, you can expect it to start coming out in your results. When standards fall, so do your abilities as a research lab. Never let complacency, laziness, or rushing compromise your lab if you want to keep your clients and funding.