Recommended KPIs for the Life Sciences Industry (Top-8):
Customers often ask us which KPIs they should use to measure and improve their operations. To help, we’ve combined our industry benchmarks (see our previous post) with extensive life sciences expertise to create a key list of recommended KPIs.
These KPIs, among many others, are available in Smart-QC and can be configured to your specific business goals—whether they are cost-driven, service level-focused, or efficiency-based.
Here are the top KPIs to consider (not ranked in any specific order):
- 1️⃣ Efficiency – Measures the execution of various tests and tasks based on standards against available hours for these activities
- 2️⃣ Workload – Tracks all activities performed versus available hours for a given shift or week.
- 3️⃣Earned Hours (Value-added) – Quantifies how many hours were spent on value-added tasks like testing and review against overall available hours
- 4️⃣ Cycle Time – Measures the time elapsed between sample/manufacturing lot approval/release vs its receipt / received date
- 5️⃣ On-Time Delivery – The percentage of samples or manufacturing lots released or authorized by their due date.
- 6️⃣ Re-Test Rate – The number of failed tests requiring repetition compared to the total tests performed at a selected lab.
- 7️⃣ Right-First-Time Documentation – The percentage of tests with documentation errors found during review compared to the total tests reviewed.
- 8️⃣ Backlog – The amount of work (in hours) pending in the lab compared to the lab’s overall capacity in hours.
The above could be further refined to better align with the lab’s goals and improvement objectives, as well as tailored for specific lab types, such as QC labs vs. R&D labs