Managing a company requires a lot of attention, care, and keen perceptions. This is because if one step in your production line, whether human or mechanized, is not as expected, it is possible that the rest will be compromised.
But a detail is not always easily and quickly noticed, which is why applying KPI monitoring concepts has become so critical for tracking operational productivity – and that includes lab activities as well. In today’s article, we will show you what this acronym means and how it can change the way we monitor efficiency and analyze the effectiveness of company operations. Read on!
After all, what are KPIs?
The acronym in English stands for Key Performance Indicator. This concept was widely spread with the popularization of digital media and is widely used by marketing and sales teams within companies, which mainly monitor the acceptance, sales, consumption, and interest of a product in the market.
But it is clear that the use of KPIs is not restricted to the marketing universe. The techniques can be applied in other parts of a company, including laboratory management, since it is possible to monitor the productivity of analysts and laboratory technicians, the operational performance of the laboratory – such as the response time (turnaround time – TAT) -, the amount of samples and analyses performed, among others. This way, the identification of opportunities and of the team’s current and future skills and weaknesses happens in a faster and more powerful way, which translates into more efficient strategies for the constant adaptation and improvement of processes and activities.
Why adopt them?
In general, companies have goals within the market and to achieve them it is essential to have a way to check if the employees are on the right track.
Working with KPIs within a laboratory, for example, guarantees this time management, productivity, and agility of response, whether in the research and development process of a new product or in the execution of analyses.
In this way, your company stimulates the professionals who work there to have the ability to broadly understand the company’s goals as a whole, increasing their ability to co-create collectively.
More strategic vision
Aiming at this improvement in the laboratory’s and company’s overall productivity, having a team focused on KPI analysis helps each sector to be able to analyze the context in which they operate, since keeping the procedural culture of years can compromise the growth in the specific industry in which they operate.
This team must be able to think more strategically about which are the best paths to take in order to achieve the goals previously thought by the managers.
More information
When applying certain KPI filters, it is easier to find those possible problems that compromise the company’s overall activity that we talked about at the beginning of this article. In this way, the more structured and relevant information managers have, the more effective they can be in creating strategies to improve the system.
Imagine, for example, a laboratory where huge spreadsheets have to be used to check a piece of information regarding the proper warranty level of a product. The time it takes to find the correct place where the data is stored, and then to interpret it, is very long, and this can be measured by an effectiveness KPI.
In this same scenario, if the lab has software that integrates all the information and has a fast and agile search system, such as Labinfy, the lab technician will be able to use the time that was previously spent looking for the data, doing the analysis itself.
How to use them effectively?
For KPIs to generate positive results in your lab, you must, however, adapt them to your needs. The first step is to define the types of indicators that best fit your objectives, and then explain to everyone involved in the company’s daily routine which KPIs will guide everyone in the execution of demands.
Another factor that is essential to achieve success in the analysis is the frequency that the data generated by the KPIs will be checked. This makes it easier to identify what is going well and what needs to be changed, causing less damage in the long run.
It is important to remember that the implementation of this type of gauge within a company requires adequate planning and team commitment, so it is necessary to frequently work on the concepts and the reasons why it is interesting for everyone to work on KPIs.
Modern methodology in your laboratory
In the globalized and digital world we live in today, we can use a series of tools and work methodologies to facilitate the execution of activities in the laboratory. That’s why KPIs are so important and advisable, after all, what one wants is to always seek good results and be a reference within the market where one operates.
