Key Challenges and Pain Points in the Global Laboratory Market

Faced with ever-increasing pressures on budgets, research strategy, workload and many other factors, the life of a researcher is arguably harder than ever before.

To better understand the key challenges and pain points in the global laboratory market, Agilent commissioned Frost & Sullivan to carry out an independent survey of 700 scientists across the laboratory employee spectrum. Here we highlight a selection of the survey’s key findings.

Top 3 laboratory goals

Laboratory managers ranked the following as their top goals:

• Develop staff (52%)
• Expand laboratory services (49%)
• Improving working environment for staff (42%)

Top 5 challenges in their laboratory

Laboratory managers ranked the following as their top challenges:

• Instrument maintenance/downtime (73%)
• Complexity of testing requirements (63%)
• Time consuming sample prep (60%)
• Keeping up with changing regulation (52%)
• Better management of data (50%) 

Main objectives over the next 18 months

Laboratory managers ranked the following as their main objectives over the next 18 months: 

• Ensuring higher throughput/productivity (58%)
• Improved system efficiency (55%)
• Development of new services needed by the organization (47%)

45% of survey respondents said that there is pressure to increase the number of samples over and above their current processing figure.

Top 5 factors limiting productivity

Respondents cited the following factors:

• Time consuming sample preparation (80%)
• Instrument downtime due to scheduled maintenance (73%)
• Unplanned downtime (67%)
• Method transfer/validation of new instruments (64%)
• Time for training laboratory technicians (40%)

Top 3 elements to improve or increase productivity

When asked to rank the top three elements to improve or increase productivity, respondents cited:

• Increase reliability of results (59%)
• Implement new technologies (57%)
• Maximize use of instruments/reduce downtime (51%)
• Get test results faster (43%)

3 main causes for unplanned downtime

When asked to select the 3 main causes for unplanned downtime, respondents cited:

• Issues with sample preparation (78%)
• Instrument breakdown (64%)
• Operator/technician error (45%)

3 main measures to reduce unplanned downtime

When asked to select the main measures to reduce unplanned downtime, respondents cited:

• Increase the use of automated systems (78%)
• Better after sales service from manufacturers (73%)
• Reduce instrument troubleshooting time (55%)

Key findings from the survey can be found here.