LABORATORY INFORMATICS

The mining company was able to immediately cut costs and improve reliablility.

 

Scale Globally by Outsourcing Laboratory Informatics

Business and Technology Goals

Our client is expanding its operations on multiple continents. A strategic partner was required who could rapidly assess their needs, transition support and drive support costs down over time. They needed complex technical and scientific analyses, reporting, and the subject matter experts available to support business decisions in a highly price competitive and dynamic world metals market.

The business had four objectives by teaming with LabAnswer for outsourcing laboratory informatics:

  • Expertise for strategic initiatives
  • Improvement of LIMS
  • Reduce costs
  • Scale globally

Solution

LabAnswer’s outsourcing approach systematically diagnosed technical support needs including standard operating procedures (SOP’s) to ensure seamless support transition. As part of the transition, a root cause analysis was conducted. Additionally, a prioritized list of modifications was developed to improve system stability, thereby reducing support needs and lowering costs over time.

LabAnswer was chosen as the laboratory informatics outsourcing partner because of our deep understanding of the laboratory environment, the number of consulting experts and the breadth of our experience.

After careful analysis LabAnswer used a hybrid of its phased approach to outsourcing:

  • Adapted LabAnswer’s standard approach to meet the time-sensitive needs to rapidly free up client staff. Our team worked multiple support tracks in parallel to assess the support needs, define system and/or process gaps and complete required additions and updates prior to taking over support.
  • Implemented a Service Level Agreement (SLA) approach to supporting the business which included weekly metrics reports and monthly trend analysis.

Benefits

The benefits of teaming with LabAnswer have been significant. The mining company was able to immediately cut costs and improve reliability with more to come.

  • Service level goals met or exceed since inception.
  • Improved LIMS stability.
    • Background processor failures eliminated and errors associated with data acquisition reduced by 80%.
  • Provided proactive communications to client’s user base during transition period
    • Increased adoption rate and success of new support service.
  • Engaged for Laboratory Informatics consulting and project implementation expertise.
  • Scalable team based support approach ensures continuous availability of knowledgeable consultants familiar with the client’s changing support needs.
  • On-track to lower support costs via additional system improvements.