Best Practices for
Inventory Control
Patricia Hanson
Biological Administrator I
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer
Services Food Microbiology Laboratory
Laboratory Inventory Control System
Develop
Troubleshoot
Improve
Starting Place
Current Inventory System that is working for
you!
Determine if your current inventory system
meets the requirements
Fill in the gaps!
ISO 4.6 Requirements
• Have a policy for receipt and storage
• Ensure items are OK before use
• Detailed purchasing documents with technical
approval
• Evaluate suppliers
Appendix B: Food Microbiology
• Identification scheme for media (alpha
numeric)
• Records to include name, lot number, lab ID,
date received, date opened, date prepared for
QC, expiration date, responsible person
• Dehydrated media is labeled with lab ID,
name, and date approved
•
From Card Catalog to a Database….
and Beyond
Card Catalog system did not meet
requirements
•
Access Database met most of the criteria
•
Extra fields were added to the Access
Database to meet all of the requirements
•
Extra items were added to the Access
Database to include all of our kits
and reagents
2007 System in Writing
•
•
•
•
Items logged into Access Database
Report printed
Opened and Discard date recorded on Report
Database updated periodically and when new
items were received
2007 System in Action
• Items logged into Access Database, if there was
time, if not they were written on the printed
report
• Report printed grew to 23 pages when all the
items were finally added
• Opened and Discard date recorded on Report
• Database updated periodically, some items were
discarded before ever going into the database
Troubleshoot
• Staff Observations – Corrective Actions
• Internal Audits
• External Audits
Corrections
• Identify trends
• Missing opened date
• Incorrect lot number
Improve
• Each individual deficiency was an oversight but the trend pointed to a system wide
problem
• Had to keep it user friendly, the staff needed
to do their job as microbiologists not just track
the inventory
• Mistakes really were not widespread, but even
sporadic mistakes are non-conformances
• Catch the mistakes in time to correct them
What We Did
•
•
•
•
4 (soon to be 5) digit inventory number
Inventory Log in Sheet
Co-located with the inventory item
Updated in Database (it used to be Access but
we have since migrated to our LIMS)
Bonuses
• Expiration List
• A place to record our kit QC results that is easy
to locate
This is what worked for One Lab
• User friendly - unique inventory number is easy
to record
• User friendly - items can quickly be logged into
the lab by any person from any section
• User friendly - located near where the work takes
place, easy to find forms in tabbed binder
• Timely review - we can catch missing information
before an internal (or external!!) audits
• Timely review - we can catch missing information
when we can still quickly and accurately recover it
Items to Consider
• There is no one size fits all system but look at
other systems for ideas
• The physical layout of the lab
• The access to technology and the technical
abilities of the lab staff
• Volume of testing
• Timely review