Question: Who is responsible for stock management (glassware, consumables, etc) in your labs? What problems do you most commonly encounter with stock?

Valerie Vancollie answered on 10 Feb 2022:

We have a team who will order more stock that we need, but it is the responsibility for everyone in the lab to let them know when we are running low. As we are a high-throughput lab that prepares 64,000 covid samples a week for sequencing, we have introduced a Kanban system to keep track of our stock levels.

This means there are cards at all the locations we have stock, when the amount gets below a certain level (6 boxes of 96 well plates for instance), we move that card out to the lab lobby and the other team will take it, order more and bring the card back when the new plates arrive. This way we always order more before we run out.

At the moment we encounter a lot of trouble with stock since a lot of the labs working with Covid need the same things. The fact that a lot of people are sick with Covid also means there are less people to make the stock, package it and get it to where it needs to go. Supplies necessary to make it may also be in high demand due to the fact there is less of it due to people being off sick and unable to make it.

It’s a vicious cycle at present and something we need to monitor it closely to ensure we have what we need to keep the lab running.