Sigsense Lab Capabilities Overview
Learn more about what the Sigsense platform can offer in the clinical lab space.
Sigsense Capabilities in the Lab
Sigsense Lab Capabilities Overview
Learn more about what the Sigsense platform can offer in the clinical lab space.
The 4 Pillars of a Lab Equipment Management System
The 4 Pillars of a Lab Equipment Management System
Introduction
The clinical laboratory is carefully balanced environment and, like the equipment that fills its walls, more than the sum of its parts. It is complex, delicate, and structured, but must also maintain a sense of flexibility to accommodate the accelerating rate of change in the fields it supports.
Providing flexibility and structure for lab equipment operations in an organized manner can be overwhelming, especially without the proper framework. However, establishing a Lab Equipment Management (LEM) system can alleviate much of that difficulty.
LEM Explained
The key elements of an LEM system go beyond the tasks of supplier management and equipment selection. It must encompass the entirety of the lab’s operational capacity to both understand current capabilities and identify improvement and expansion opportunities. Here are a few examples of LEM outputs:
Tracking the day-to-day equipment behavior in the lab
Understanding the true efficiency and productivity of your equipment
Tracking equipment maintenance and reliability behavior
Understanding equipment capabilities to inform capital and technology refreshes
Identifying process bottlenecks and optimization opportunities.
Building Your LEM System
One of the primary benefits of an LEM system the broad set of insights which can be derived from the equipment operation, which allows the lab to continually evaluate and improve the lab from multiple directions. LEM System is a single source to track if a designed process is meeting its goals, report on reliability and OEE metrics, notify users of harmful machine issues, or environmental irregularities, and provide insights to improve performance and direct capital spending.
Here are the four foundational cornerstones a functional LEM system should cover.
Productivity
Let’s start by stating the obvious: Each day comes with a finite amount of time.
Regarding lab operations, that time can be divided into active and passive tasks.
Active tasks may include:
Collecting samples
Sample preparation
Passive tasks may include:
Waiting on paperwork or procedures to be completed
Sample analysis runtime
Understanding the ebb and flow of active equipment usage can create specific windows of opportunity to boost productivity. For example, auditing workflows to ensure you have people quickly addressing manual steps and identifying exactly how much those manual steps are acting as a bottleneck to automated equipment processes. Similarly, changing consumable replenishment strategies by leveraging automated tech such as liquid handlers provides both a means to streamline that process and the chance for whomever was previously responsible for manually completing that task to better dedicate their time and effort.
And along with the resulting productivity increase, there are additional benefits to be had as well:
Reducing stress. Juggling multiple tasks can be daunting for personnel. Assisting them in creating a manageable schedule ensures the work is completed efficiently and effectively without undue added stress.
More time. Time management creates more time in the average day. When those missed windows of downtime are successfully leveraged into active tasks, the work is completed efficiently, and productivity has the same opportunity to increase.
More opportunity. As the flow of active and passive tasks is successfully managed, existing capability will increase to provide the opportunity to expand for new business.
That’s productivity in a nutshell – how much work can be done in the allotted time frame.
Efficiency
If productivity is the volume of work done, then efficiency is the quality of that work. The correlation between productivity and efficiency has already been discussed in terms of time management, but that’s not the only option for increasing efficiency.
Producing a high volume of work is important, but in a clinical laboratory setting, quality should never be sacrificed for volume. The cost of degraded outputs can be measured in both monetary terms and patient safety.
And while process improvements can be the most difficult to identify in a laboratory setting, making them is one of the simplest ways to reduce waste and improve efficiency. Examples include:
Understanding the true cause of unproductive time, equipment failure, manual steps, sample replenishment and consumable refreshing all make up a substantial impact on operations and require very different strategies to address.
Evaluate equipment for idle time to reduce wasted solvents and needless wear and tear
Identify opportunities for automation to increase method accuracy and reduce errors
The volume of work becomes meaningless if the analysis being run is inaccurate. Not only does this decrease efficiency, but it can decrease confidence in the laboratory.
Empower the laboratory team to identify bottlenecks and create compliant solutions
Track issues with periodic monitoring to see if problems are recurring
Properly maintain equipment by following the manufacturer’s recommendations
Improving efficiency supports and improves patient care, providing additional resources for needed testing and evaluation of clinical results.
Reliability
There’s no way to escape the unexpected complications that can arise while working with complex clinical laboratory equipment. From simple human error to mechanical breakdowns or systemic failures in laboratory processes, identifying the root cause of the deviation is as critical as finding the error itself:
A blocked fan vent on a freezer causes a temperature excursion; the samples contained in the freezer are outside their recommended storage conditions and must be discarded.
A failing heating element in an incubator prevents samples from coming to the right temperature prior to getting processed; the samples produce inaccurate test results.
Are these isolated events? Recurring issues that can be solved with retraining? Indicators of equipment that needs to be prioritized in the maintenance/replacement hierarchy?
Tracking errors as they occur can provide the necessary metrics for applying appropriate corrective and preventive actions to reduce the number of errors that result in downtime for personnel and equipment. Commercial solutions are available to track and trend non-conforming results as well as document the investigation into the root cause. But even a simple spreadsheet is better than nothing as a means to gather and organize the necessary data for tracking failures and their causes.
It is crucial to perform a periodic evaluation of the data to identify any trends related to equipment performance, training gaps, likelihood of recurrence, or hidden opportunities for process improvements.
Quality Checks
Laboratory procedures should provide for routine equipment maintenance and output checks. The nature and frequency of those checks is dependent upon the risk of an error being reported and its impact on the safety and efficacy of the clinical processes.
In addition to performing the checks, oversight is necessary to ensure the program is being carried out according to SOP. These reviews should evaluate the outcome of the quality check as well as the adherence to the schedule. Establishing a periodic maintenance schedule is not sufficient. Is there a mechanism in place to ensure the schedule is being followed? Are there automatic triggers to identify when a scheduled task is missed or is it reliant on a manual check of the schedule?
Quality checks on the tests and results provide confidence in the methods and analysis being used to generate data. Monitoring the environmental factors in a laboratory can also provide a measure of quality control. It is vital to understand what external factors may impact the outputs of testing.
Dry ice produces CO2 and if left too near test equipment may impact test results
Machines situated too close to air vents experience greater external temperature fluctuations which impacts their performance
A LEM System That Works
A managed LEM framework will provide a flexible but consistent structure for laboratory operations to maintain a high quality of output while identifying opportunities for sustainable growth. The Sigsense platform provides a comprehensive LEM solution that will provide the necessary insight for management to track operational performance, optimize the data gathered, and convert it into cost-saving efficiencies. This tailor-made solution focuses on the specific needs of the customer to maximize the opportunity for growth. Contact us for more information.
5 Reasons Why Sigsense Is Your Throughput Champion
Sigsense in the Clinical Lab Space
Voice of the Machine: AI and the language of power
Learn more about AI applications in the clinical lab space.
Utilizing AI to streamline and improve workflows is quickly becoming the norm rather than the exception. It’s especially prevalent, and critical, in settings like clinical laboratories—multiple complex processes running simultaneously, razor-thin margins for error, life-changing medical decisions depending on output accuracy.
Read more in this GEN Magazine article about how Sigsense, in partnership with Agilent Technologies, is using AI to improve the clinical lab landscape.
Predictive Analytics Solves Problems Before They Exist
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS SOLVES PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY EXIST
Predictive Analytics
Leverage performance data to anticipate and prevent failures.
With history comes experience, and with experience comes insight. That’s what makes your service tech with 20 years of tenure so valuable—the tech has seen and dealt with so many and varied issues over the years that oftentimes problems are diagnosed immediately or spotted before they actually happen.
That degree of comprehension, while valuable, takes quite a long time to obtain. Which of course would make being able to acquire that knowledge in a shorter amount of time, and share it across your entire team, even more valuable.
Consider what it means to ‘learn’. Introductory information is gathered and a baseline of familiarity is established; this is the starting point of the learning process.
More, and more nuanced, information is discovered, and conceptual connections are created—as this process continues, familiarity evolves into understanding, which evolves into comprehension, which evolves into synthesization. This is the stage at which our service tech obtains those preternatural detection abilities.
And that right there is exactly what the Sigsense platform does...but in days and weeks instead of decades.
Once integrated with your system, the AI powering the platform immediately starts gathering performance data for all your equipment. The longer it runs, the more and better it learns about your equipment; eventually, it comes to know your equipment so well that it can pick up on the slightest performance anomalies.
By analyzing those deviations against the entire body of collected data, the platform can even make intelligent predictions regarding what those anomalies actually mean. Or, put simply, it can find and call attention to problems before they cause failures.
Aside from the obvious benefit of knowing about potential problems before they exist, those predictions also allow you to accurately triage issues. So those that require immediate attention can get it, while those that can wait allow you the flexibility to attend to them when convenient. And even better, this wealth of experience is available to everyone on your team right away.
Issue detection, understanding, and advice—all in one platform.
Universal Applicability—Track everything with one Solution
UNIVERSAL APPLICABILITY—TRACK EVERYTHING WITH ONE SOLUTION
Platform Technology
Regardless of age, type, or purpose, the Sigsense platform works on any machine powered by electricity.
Today’s service organizations are not built around one single type of equipment. Rather they oversee different types of equipment from multiple suppliers, all with varying levels of complexity, downtime impact, and repair costs.
Being able to provide a uniform quality of service across different equipment fleets is critical to upholding commitments and maintaining a profitable operation. Or in other words, the more a service org is capable of getting uniform and high-quality usage, diagnostic, and proactive data for their different types of equipment, the easier it is to commit to SLAs, execute on those commitments, and resolve issues quickly.
This is exactly what the Sigsense Predictive Asset Management platform provides—because it can work on literally any machine that draws power from an outlet.
The deep-learning AI that powers the platform collects and analyzes performance data for any machine that draws power, from manufacturing machinery to medical diagnostic equipment and everything in between.
That AI connects to the equipment via easy-to-implement sensor technology that performs equally well with different models of the same machine or two machines that were built 15 years apart—enabling a universal monitoring and service platform for any device which draws power from an electrical outlet.
The Sigsense platform is a turnkey solution that works within your existing infrastructure. No on-prem client, no invasive install, no OEM systems to integrate, no database to create. Just an increase in customer satisfaction thanks to a reduction in equipment downtime and disruptions to business.
Learn more about what the Sigsense platform can do for you.
Real-Time ATM Network Monitoring
Real-Time ATM Network Monitoring
Real-time Insights
The Sigsense platform puts up-to-the-minute performance data at your disposal. But what else can it do with that information?
One of the biggest hurdles that most ATM service professionals face is figuring out the best way to know how the machines they oversee are actually doing. Easy enough to do if they’re all located in a three-mile radius, but for a service network that’s spread out over cities, or states, it’s a daunting challenge.
Different climates, environments, and regional bill quality drive very different service procedures. Performing the various critical maintenance and repair tasks at each stop...that’s a complicated process to perform even once, let alone using it as SOP.
Most often, service techs don’t know what to expect for each machine until the inspection happens. It could be a simple cleaning is all that’s needed, but it could also just as easily be a machine has a broken SDM, a faulty card reader, a broken bill loader, or any other number of other complicated and time-consuming issues. All of a sudden a simple once-over turns into a nonfunctioning machine that requires ordering several replacement parts and at least two additional trips to make the necessary repairs. And of course, let’s not forget about the revenue that’s lost while the machine is down.
While auditing machines to figure out which are due for a review, then plotting out their locations and determining which machines should be prioritized, would be a more thorough approach, that’s often overridden in favor of attending to more pressing day-to-day reactive operations.
The result? Response times are longer than required and first-trip resolutions are the exception rather than the rule.
Now imagine that same scenario, except instead of one machine it’s several. All of a sudden there are multiple simultaneous repair jobs — each requiring the same level of effort and attention — that you have to plan for/schedule out/order replacement parts for/actually fix, which means both an exponentially longer repair timeframe and, more importantly, exponentially more revenue lost.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some kind of live monitoring system that let you see how every machine in your network was performing at any given moment?
At Sigsense, real-time performance analytics aren’t a thing of the future — they’re exactly what we give customers today. Our system provides detailed metrics on machine usage, condition, and alerts, eliminating the need to visit each machine in-person to get an accurate understanding of how it’s functioning. Even better, the platform can work with any machine, so providing a single integrated solution for ATMs, Cash Handlers, Automated tellers, Deposit Machines, no matter what kind of equipment you’re responsible for (or how old they are) the platform can help.
And because our AI can remotely diagnose issues, it eliminates the need for lengthy onsite troubleshooting. The ability to know when a machine is experiencing issues in advance allows you to send the right person for the job with the right parts, which reduces both the need for multiple visits and delays due to part-ordering lead times, minimizing the length of time a machine is out of service. In other words, it means fewer trips, reduced down-time, and meeting (or even exceeding) your SLA agreements.
We don’t just provide maintenance-related information either. The SigSense platform also gathers and reports valuable usage data that helps you and your customers track and evaluate customer usage patterns, allowing you to identify key high-traffic locations and ensure you’ve got the best machine for the job in the right place. All this without touching secure IT systems, integrating into financial data, or introducing new security risks.
Ready to learn more about how the Sigsense platform can make life easier? Get in touch
