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IN LAB PRODUCTIVITY, ELECTRONIC DELIVERABLES MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
Article from Environmental
Business Journal Volume XVII No.9/10 2004
Environmental laboratory executives confide
that, in the information age, produc-tivity is less a function of
state-of-the-art instrumentation than it is a function of their facilities’
ability to produce the “deliverables.” Achieving the finest detection
limits is certainly valuable, but it is all for naught if the lab
can’t generate and deliver thorough, clear and defensible reports
in a timely manner. Information technology (IT) is the critical factor
in competitiveness today.
Flexibility
is vital to deliverables success as well. Environmental labs must
meet the reporting requirements of different agencies and programs,
including the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, the Department
of Energy, and EPA’s various regulatory programs. Having software
that can easily accept the results of different testing protocols
and generate reports to the standards of the different agencies can
provide a competitive advantage.
Environmental software providers are hearing the message loud and
clear. “Our clients are seeking flexibility and manageability, and
the ability to get results out the door fast, within minutes,” notes
Rosemary Brock, president of EISC (Las Vegas, Nev.; www.eisc.net),
a firm that specializes in productivity software and IT-related contract
work for environmental laboratories.
EISC boasts that its flagship product, the R&R Suite (for “review
and reporting”), is the only “scalable” suite of productivity software
for environmental laboratories— that is, users can select specific
technical modules as needed. Paul Banfer, EISC’s vice president of
product technology, describes the software as “middleware” linking
the different testing capabilities of the lab—general chemistry, metals,
volatiles, PCBs, etc.—with each other and with the reporting and electronic
deliverables functions. “Say your volatiles area is working fine but
you need improvement in metals testing,” Banfer explains. Using the
R&R Suite, “the lab can mix and match and decide which area they can
focus on, and they can manage their production needs a lot better,
and budget for those needs,” he says.
This capability “allows labs to reach markets they haven’t been in,
and to do so rapidly,” Banfer adds. “With our software, a company
that hasn’t been active in, say, the Superfund area can quickly become
a competitor there.”
Continuing advances in lab software development at EISC include the
delivery of packages through the Internet, and the tying of lab productivity
software to the engi-neering side of the job. As Brock notes, in lab
productivity, it’s all about connectivity, and “allowing the experts
in the industry to focus on their core competence without having to
focus on how to get the deliverable to the client.”
• • •
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