Becoming Your Preferred Micro Testing Provider

by Neal Salerno, President, Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories

Clients have told us for decades, they come to us for our trusted quality data, comprehensive services portfolio, and our fantastic people. In response, we take great pride in delivering testing excellence that helps clients make the world healthier and safer. Yet even the best run operations should always take a hard look at systems and ask, “How can we improve the client experience?”

Over the past few months we’ve hit the refresh button in our Microbiology Services Department and have made strides to deliver better client responsiveness and consultation. Through Lean initiatives, we have improved TAT and cost-effectiveness. We have on-boarded new technology and invested in staff training to keep client trust.

Mostly, listening to and hearing what our clients are saying is the impetus behind a renewed collaborative focus with them to meet ever-changing requirements and industry trends. Here are some of the exciting Microbiology improvements and service benefits we’ve been working on and that clients can look forward to seeing from us:

Improvements through LEAN

Tremendous effort has been focused on a LEAN evaluation of the operational flow for the Microbiology Department and will be ongoing with improvements continuing to occur. The initial benefits from LEAN have allowed:

• Significant reduction in pricing (especially for validation/suitability)
• Improvement in lab supply inventory
• Elimination of waste steps
• Modification of general workflow in several test areas
• Improvements in scheduling
• Redesign of laboratory space to improve workflow

Future efforts will focus specifically on turnaround time with the target to establish industry leading TAT.

Competitive Pricing

Our pricing structure has been completely revamped, allowing us to provide extremely competitive pricing for our full breadth of service offerings.

Growing Staff & Operational Focus

With our growing staff, we’ve divided to conquer and formed two different branches of Micro management (Operations and Technology/Compliance) to improve responsiveness, increase industry presence and allow an increased focus on development of our lab staff.

Operational management will focus on:

• Continuing to LEAN operational areas
• Providing industry leading responsiveness and consultation
• Creating an excellent customer experience

Technology and Compliance management will focus on:

• Assessing current industry trends to ensure operations are current
• Identifying and on-boarding new technology and service offerings
• Increasing involvement with industry
• Supplementing regulatory compliance training

Electronic game-changers

Likely one of our strongest differentiators in continually striving to drive down TAT and improve quality has been through our innovative Electronic Lab Notebook system, eLIMS-BPT, and secure on-line data access tool LabAccess.com. Maintaining detailed and harmonized sample/project information electronically has resulted in an 80% reduction of Micro lab errors and has enabled clients to view real-time results when it’s convenient for them.

Expanded full-service microbiology scope:

With over 10,000 ft² of state-of-the-art BSL2 laboratory space, 2,000 ft² of incubator storage, three ISO Clean Rooms, three additional autoclaves, and two new automated media prep Filamatics for larger batch sizes, we’ve expanded capacity to support every type of micro testing project of any size and timeline for:

Non-Sterile Products Testing

• Bioburden
• AET
• Growth Promotion
• Organism ID (Gene Sequencing or Maldi-TOF)

Sterile Products Testing

• Sterility
• Endotoxin
• Particulate Matter

Manufacturing/Facility Validation Support

• Disinfectant Efficacy Studies
• Environmental Monitoring
• Water Testing
• On-site Sample Collection
• Facility/Process Validation

Global Regulatory Compliance

Clients releasing products in the international marketplace can get global regulatory support as Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories is part of the largest network of GMP Microbiology laboratories in the industry, including more than 20 laboratories in Europe and the US with harmonized methods to support multiple compendia, including USP, EP, JP, and 21 CFR.

When you combine these recent advancements and improvements with our sincere desire to delight our clients, it’s a winning combination to foster mutually beneficial partnerships. Across the board--from sample entry to glassware washrooms to testing labs to data review, we are always looking for ways to improve and are eager to hear your feedback as we continue our quest to be the #1 preferred Micro Testing provider.