Business Cases

Thursday 31 March 2011 Electronic Laboratory notebooks


Opportunity to implement electronic Laboratory notebooks.


CLIENT


The Raw Materials Research department of a leader in the cosmetics industry.


CONTEXT


Researchers carry out a wide range of Research activities compiled on paper Laboratory Notebooks. The requirement was to optimize the collaboration, knowledge management and productivity of the department by considering an integrated laboratory information management system and the use of electronic Laboratory Notebooks ( eLN) as a central tool for an access to all the experiments around the same theme,  molecule and  raw materials.


OBJECTIVES


To support the decision for replacement of the current Paper Lab Notebook by electronic ones, taking into account Business process, IT environment, financial, security and intellectual property (IP) aspects. To support this decision, a business case was written with the following major items:

  • Global  scope (stakeholders, issues and threats /fears, key challenging points)  

  • Scope assessment based on business process modeling :

        Integration (processes / practices / structure of the current existing LN potentially impacted by the introduction of an eLN, security, traceability),

        - Regulatory and legal environments and Good Practices, IP constraints,

        - Challenge user requests using experience of other companies in eLN implementation.

        - Project Schedule and financial aspects.


To enable all the involved business teams to converge to a unique satisfying solution.


ORGANIZATION OF THE MISSION

 

the mission covered a 2 month period:


  • For the global scoping of the mission, a first initial brainstorming to be shared
  • For the scope assessment, several steps on the basis of Workshops with ProductLife and Client teams:

       Step 1: Sharing the objectives and analysis / pilots already performed on this subject.

      Step 2: Summing up the previous points,  formulation of  concrete objectives of the eLN implementation and concomitant related impacts (in terms of processes and systems).

      Step 3: Challenging this formulation through other companies’ experience regarding eLN implementation.

      Step 4: Completing a Business Case summing up all the points required by the Client

.

RESOURCES


  • 1 mission Director, expert in opportunity studies and business processes.
  • 1 expert consultant in integrated lab.
  • 1 senior consultant in opportunity studies and eLN.

RESULTS


  • The final user requirements did not convey major specificities as compared to eLN implementation in other Companies.
  • Reallocation of 20 % of researchers’ time to their main mission. This percentage corresponds to the time saved by
  • Avoidance of paper management,
  • Facilitation of information searches within the sets of paper notebooks,
  • Coordination of simultaneous experiments on the same groups ofingredients.
  • A unique solution : all businesses and all types of experiments were involved in the new approach
  • A safe and flexible solution for the IP :

        - linked to a legal electronic records management,

        - allowing to certify the results  of an experiment simultaneously with their validation.

  • Secure access to all the experiments around a certain raw material, assuring the control of the full information which characterizes it.
  • The previous point is essential to trace and demonstrate the exhaustiveness of the knowledge of the lab about raw materials used (claims and safety point of view).



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