How do you allocate LC systems

[Paulhurleyuk]

It's slightly off topic, but here's a general question for those people who work ina lab with more than one person and more than one LC.

How do you allocate LC's ?

We currently have calendars next to each LC so people can 'book' a system. It works in that you can see when a machine should eb free, but it's niot very efficient in that people often book a amachine for a week to do a run that takes max 36 hours, for the rest of the time the machine is idle

Any better ideas ??

Paul.

[DR]

We pretty much have one (or more) LC per chromatographer. The older, communal instruments are shared with calendar sheets. Ours sit idle some of the time too, but there's never time to wait for an instrument to finish a long run when someone else has 150 samples to put on... (we do a lot of process validation uniformity & dissolution profile testing).

[tom jupille]

I suppose it depends a bit on how big the lab (how many people and how many LC's). If your lab is doing primarily chromatography, my take is that hardware is cheap, people are valuable. Hence 1 (or more) LCs per person. If chromatography is not the be-all and end-all of your life, then this isn't practical.

If the lab is small enough and the group is cohesive enough, I'd suggest that each LC have an "owner", and that the chemists work as a team to allocate instrument time and priorities.

Ultimately this is a psychology / management issue rather than a scientific issue. If all your people are pulling together, then they will find a way to make even a dysfunctional system work. If they are not, then even a perfect system will have problems.

[Bruce Hamilton]

I've found the best way is to ensure somebody prioritises incoming work and checks staff resource allocation, and then the analysts are responsible for utilisation and operation of the instruments.

It depends on the environment ( single samples versus large batches, research versus regulatory analyses ) but we found two staff covering 5 HPLCs kept uptime high, and they each processed samples from reception to report. Staff have to be compatible and co-operative.

The trick is communication, pride, and job satisfaction. Analysts don't like to see idle toys, and they usually like to know about the samples and how their results help the customer.

If lab managers communicate well and trust people to deliver by giving them ownership and responsibility, staff and instrument utilisation can be very high. I'm stunned at how many labs don't give staff financial delegations so they can look after their toys.

I don't see instruments as cheap compared to staff, modern instruments require significant up-front capital, and ( at least in NZ ) are now depreciated much quicker because they are computer based.

In my expereince, the annual cost of operating a qualified HPLC with consumables would be similar to a new staff member. HPLCs need to be earning bikkies, as they're often the reason you needed the staff.

If labs have unutilised expensive toys lying around rapidly depreciating, and aren't subject to peak sample loads, I'd suggest that somebody made some bad decisions or predictions.

Bruce Hamilton

[Consumer Products Guy]

Like Tom mentioned, it's easier for us to get instrumentation than additional staff. Last year we got two HPLC 1050 systems from QC that were replaced by 1100s. They have service contracts, R&D doesn't, but we are tons better at fixing them ourselves (for example, diagnosed and replaced active inlet cartridge this week ($170) to restore operation. We find with add'l instrumentation we oftentimes save time in setting up a system. Of 8 HPLCs, 3 are used for OTC assays primarily, another is currently dedicated to a conductivity detector, another dedicated to RI detector (that one had its multi-channel valve removed anyway, but perfect for this). Similar for GCs: one with high-temp column, one with PEG column, one with HP-5, similar with our GCMS systems, saves labor. If there's any scheduling issues I decide since I'm the boss). The department is small enough that one can readily ask all if a certain system is available that day. Most of our routine stuff is injected automatically overnight.