Our Time-Saving Software Solution: The AS Report Combiner

"How many business operations can justify highly-skilled chemists spending up to a fifth of their time cutting and pasting reports? We calculated that without any form of automation, lab chemists probably spend 20% of their time collating and amending reports. That makes them very expensive document managers! We needed a better way. And with Aitken Scientific we found it. The reporting tool they developed for us cuts this time in half, saving 10% of an FTE, and provides a much higher quality end-product in a consistent and flexible format. This has had a significant impact on lab productivity and the quality of reports we send to our internal customers."

The software development business challenge

Our client, a major pharmaceutical company, runs a sample analysis and reporting service for its internal customers. On arrival at the lab, the samples are individually bar-coded and all details entered in a database. Then the analysis is carried out. So far, all very efficient. Then the cumbersome reporting process would start.

With mass spectrometry instruments from three different manufacturers used in the analysis process, each handling and outputting data in different ways, the lab chemists could not collate the results in any consistent style or format. So individual reports were printed from each instrument and annotated by hand with structure diagrams and other information not available from the MS systems. They were then scanned into a computer and emailed to the internal customer.

Professional? Efficient? Not exactly...

The whole process, especially the scanning, was too time-consuming and mundane. It was time to call in the software engineering experts from Aitken Scientific.

Our scientific software solution

We assessed and analysed all the report sources, formats, content and usage in the department. From that analysis, we devised and developed a flexible, easy-to-use customisable software application that collects all the MS related data into a database and collates it into a single, high-quality report in Microsoft Word format, which the internal customers can receive by email and attach to any electronic notebook record they are keeping.

The software application enables the lab chemists to take images from the screen window they are working on, capture printed reports from any application and collect structures from structure drawing packages, all referenced through the sample ID and keywords. Then using a pre-defined Microsoft Word template, the Report Combiner software application automatically builds the final report from the database elements.

Major benefits of our scientific software solution

• Big improvement in the quality of the report
• Significantly reduced the time and effort required
• Improved productivity in the lab
• Improved response time to internal customers
• Easy-to-use, flexible software solution that consolidates output from multiple sources and diverse formats into a consistent standard layout

For further information contact us.