A New Approach in Laboratory Resource Planning
Resource Planner is a tool for the Laboratory Manager. It will help the Laboratory Manager plan and track laboratory resources efficiently. It is designed to work as a standalone and/or as an add on module of an existing LIMS.
Resource Planning
The Resource Planner can look at the outstanding tasks (workload) in a laboratory and suggest an optimal plan to complete those tasks. It considers most of the parameters and constraints e.g. expertise and availability of staff members, availability of instruments, average task completion times, priority of tasks etc.
If planning is being done for a longer term (say six months), this feature could be used to calculate the completion times of tasks and check the feasibility of due dates. For short term planning, it could be used to create weekly schedules/work sheets.
Another very useful feature is handling “what-if” scenarios. In a laboratory, resources are often lost or new tasks come in. Dealing with these situations is often complex and time consuming. Resource Planner can be used to deal with these scenarios e.g. if new tasks arrive, Resource Planner can acknowledge them and re-calculate the completion time. Priority of tasks could be changed if some tasks become critical.
Tracking Resources
Resource Planner can be used to track resources such as staff members and instruments. The Laboratory Manager can look at the availability of staff members and instruments at any time.
The Laboratory Manager can track the expertise of his staff members e.g. who can do what test. This information is useful for identifying the training needs of staff.
Resource Planner could also be used to track the workload e.g. work arrived, work in progress and work completed. It presents this information to the Laboratory Manager in an intuitive graphical format.
Other Features
- Resource Planner has the look-and-feel of Matrix LIMS.
- It uses advanced Artificial Intelligence algorithms to generate plans.
- It generates high quality graphs and charts.
- It is built on the Microsoft®.NET technology. This is the latest technology from Microsoft.
