What QC Gives Up When Not Leveraging Digital Planning and Scheduling Solutions like Smart-QC
While there are many benefits and savings from using an automatic scheduling system, I want to focus on one that is less obvious and often overlooked when assessing the ROI or benefits of automation. Labs that use manual tools such as whiteboards or Excel for scheduling, usually create more specialized teams, with hard or soft dedication to a specific product family. In many cases, they also keep teams smaller to simplify the scheduling process, which is typically done by a supervisor or planner.
The challenge appears when some teams need more support than others due to supply chain prioritization. Supervisors are often reluctant to share resources, and when asked about their workload, they will almost always say they are fully busy. The outcome is that one or two teams struggle to meet their goals, while other teams may work on samples that are less critical to the business priorities.
One of the key values of automated scheduling is the ability to expand the effective team size and let the algorithm assign work based on true business needs, rather than the organizational structure that is often sub-optimized by design.
To learn how digital scheduling solutions like smart-qc can improve laboratory planning and operational efficiency, contact us.