Well, for one I’d really love to see even more improvements in recognizing supply usage. As near as I can tell there is nothing out there that’s doing the job. Most inventory management still requires someone in the lab to track and report. There’s a lot of barcode-based solutions where folks scan stuff out, but people are so busy that this either never gets pick-up in the lab or not enough people commit to it and you might as well not even bother with the system.
Something that could track the removal/use of products without needing so much handholding or constant verification would save so much time and avoid so many urgent orders.
Also, something that ties together ELN work and related supplies alongside inventory, and that adjusts inventory levels and helps with reorder alerts at particular thresholds. That would smooth a lot of the pain around planning. Like if something could alert me that a reagent/consumable/chemical was out or low before I was about to commit to a project it’d sure avoid a lot of urgent orders which can be a huge cost driver due to shipping costs or having to pay more than average because only one vendor doesn’t have something on backorder or they’re the only ones who can ship in time to keep things moving.
Something that could track the removal/use of products without needing so much handholding or constant verification would save so much time and avoid so many urgent orders.
Also, something that ties together ELN work and related supplies alongside inventory, and that adjusts inventory levels and helps with reorder alerts at particular thresholds. That would smooth a lot of the pain around planning. Like if something could alert me that a reagent/consumable/chemical was out or low before I was about to commit to a project it’d sure avoid a lot of urgent orders which can be a huge cost driver due to shipping costs or having to pay more than average because only one vendor doesn’t have something on backorder or they’re the only ones who can ship in time to keep things moving.