Strengthen the bench and build a lab for the future with mobile lab inventory management

Inventory management is seamless — until it isn’t. Suddenly, a mislabeled bottle causes a test to go wrong, or a missing reagent means that critical results are delayed.

Despite this, most labs continue to use manual inventory management methods that have been developed over the past hundred years.  It is now time to explore the potential to not only streamline inventory management but also to focus on how inventory management can increase the speed, accuracy, and collaboration within a modern lab environment.

It’s time to take a new approach.

The microwave oven was invented through an aha moment when a researcher’s chocolate bar melted in his shirt pocket walking through a radar test room. There’s something in your shirt pocket, backpack, or on your desk that could transform inventory management —your mobile device.

Imagine being able to update stock levels mid-protocol without having to find pen and paper, enter data into a spreadsheet, or dash back to your desktop computer. Mobile apps used directly at the bench can streamline how stock is controlled, reported, tracked, and even reordered.

The “Walking Around” institutional memory

Within any lab, it is the medical lab scientist’s job to scan, uncap, and measure, so they always know what’s happening with inventory at any point in time. However, they are generally considered “reporters” only — entering the data into the system but not ensuring that actions are taken.

Instead of being passive members of the lab “supply chain,” laboratory staff can use mobile inventory management systems to not only report but also to act. When they add the data directly to their mobile devices concerning their usage of the dwindling supply of a reagent — directly from the bench — the system can use automation to add that reagent to the lab’s running shopping list within its inventory ordering system.

With real-time reporting and ordering, the medical laboratory scientists themselves can ensure that all supplies are on hand. More accurate stock levels mean fewer bottlenecks and faster and smoother operations. No one is waiting for that last solution to arrive before they can start their testing.

Small steps make big changes

One lab, one MLS, and one test are definitely not how things work. In reality, labs have multiple teams working on a variety of tests — but only one can use the last bottle of XYZ reagent — because someone forgot to check one of the manual spreadsheets before placing the last order.

A mobile inventory management system works as a dynamic, self-correcting inventory system. Every time any lab professional makes an update, those updates are correlated with actual inventory levels, lab requirements, and lab order systems — all in real time. Now multiply that across a few laboratory professionals in a single lab or an entire complex of lab professionals across many labs.

What is ideal about a mobile lab management system is that it doesn’t add to laboratory staff workloads (which may involve racing to other labs to see if they still have a batch of that critical reagent). Instead, it reduces stock discrepancies and outages.

Lab + mobile = Many strategic benefits

Based on the lab type, compliance is either a minor hassle or a major challenge. When it is compliance audit time, what is easier — trying to collate and correlate inventory with spreadsheets for cold storage, freezer storage, hot storage and then cross referencing everything with the order…or downloading a real-time report from the inventory management system.

Laboratories need to be compliance ready at any point as well as improve their resource efficiency, streamline operations digitally , and grow testing operations — these can only benefit by “going mobile.” It is no longer a nice to have but a critical tool in the modern laboratory.

Managing remote, hybrid, and on-site research

The “static” lab no longer exists – and the ways of “static” inventory systems are long gone.

Now, labs operate across multiple locations, with hybrid operations or flexible staffing. Agile mobile tools allow everyone to stay on the same page, coordinating activities, keeping everything up to date in real time, ensuring traceability, all while preserving the institutional memory.

Sharing responsibility while ensuring clarity

Inventory management should not be one person’s responsibility; it should be everyone’s. When using real-time inventory tracking with a mobile app, lab operations are smoother, smarter, and everyone is more accountable.

Thus, everything they need is in the right place at the right time, ensuring agility, efficiency, and accuracy – with easier regulatory compliance as a bonus.

References

1.    Digital transformation in life sciences: Rethinking clinical labs for the future. Deloitte. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www2.deloitte.com.

2.    Patel R, Shah A. Human error in laboratory inventory management: Causes and remedies. J Lab Autom. 2017;22(1):15–22. doi:10.1016/j.jala.2017.01.004.

3.    Clark C, Watson H, Wyn S. GAMP 5 guide 2nd edition. ISPE | International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://ispe.org/publications/guidance-documents/gamp-5.

4.    21 CFR Part 11 – Electronic Records; Electronic Signatures. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Published 2003. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents.

5.    Global Laboratory Informatics Market, Forecast to 2025. Frost & Sullivan. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.frost.com.

6.    How digitization is transforming lab operations. McKinsey & Company. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.mckinsey.com.