Lab Design: Equipment Utilisation and Asset Management

In an era of cost-conscious innovation, including tighter budgets, talent shortages and escalating regulatory demands, life sciences labs are under pressure to improve performance while managing budgets more wisely. By focusing on equipment utilisation and asset intelligence, labs can reduce downtime, avoid unnecessary purchases, optimise maintenance intervals and scale smarter – all without compromising quality or compliance

Rob Estrella at Elemental Machines

The pressure is mounting on today’s pharmaceutical labs to improve performance while minimising operational costs. In a climate defined by tighter budgets, talent shortages and increasing regulatory expectations, the idea of ‘doing more with less’ has become commonplace. But the reality is: trying to do more with less rarely works. The smarter path is doing more with what you already have.

But optimising lab workflows and design means more than tweaking facility layout and planning space. It requires understanding how assets are used, where bottlenecks exist and where hidden inefficiencies cost labs money. Equipment utilisation monitoring and asset management have become central to this new, more intelligent definition of lab design.

With inflationary pressure and constrained capital budgets, lab managers should take a hard look at existing infrastructure. Strategic, evidence-based decisions about resource allocation can prevent unplanned expenses, reduce service redundancies and improve uptime, all of which are critical for ensuring long-term viability in a resource-constrained industry.

The untapped potential of equipment utilisation

It’s astonishing how much capacity lies hidden within the average pharmaceutical lab, with significant underutilisation that remains invisible to management. Many lab leaders don’t have the data to truly know how often their most expensive, critical equipment is truly used, or whether it’s used effectively. In some cases, high-capacity freezers run continuously despite being half full, consuming maximum power to cool empty space. In others, analytical devices or incubators sit idle for weeks, wasting energy and occupying prime real estate. Why does this matter? Because when the low usage of existing equipment goes unnoticed, labs often make unnecessary new purchases to meet perceived needs, while overused assets are more prone to failure and unplanned downtime.

This isn’t just an operational problem – it’s a financial one. Downtime for key equipment, particularly in pharmaceutical labs, can cost thousands of dollars per hour and result in a variety of unwanted outcomes, including lost productivity, compromised samples and even regulatory setbacks.1 Asset performance insights tell a story that most labs haven’t heard before. When labs begin tracking equipment deployment patterns, patterns commonly emerge that help inform better scheduling, reduce over-servicing and flag the need for repairs before a failure occurs.2 For example, utilisation analytics may reveal that two units of the same kind are rarely used simultaneously, enabling labs to downsize their fleet without compromising capacity. Alternatively, chronically overused devices may signal a need for reallocation or updated redundancy planning.

These intelligence patterns support more strategic decisions about capital purchases, leasing agreements and maintenance schedules. Instead of simply relying on anecdotal experiences or manufacturer recommendations, lab teams have the potential to reference real-world performance data to support their planning.

Data-driven asset management: visibility that pays off

Strategic asset oversight’s true power comes from providing comprehensive data and a holistic view of a lab’s infrastructure. This includes insights into:

• Life cycle monitoring: tracking assets from acquisition to retirement

• Maintenance history: a complete record of services, repairs and calibrations

• Operational patterns: real-world data on how often and how effectively equipment is used

• Environmental exposure: Conditions like temperature, humidity or vibration.

From knowing when a freezer’s warranty expires to understanding how often a biosafety cabinet’s filters are replaced, analytics-backed visibility is a powerful operational tool. For example, imagine an incubator showing a subtle but consistent increase in its internal temperature recovery time after door openings. This isn’t just a random fluctuation; a smart asset management system can flag this as a potential early indicator of a degrading door seal or a fan nearing the end of its life. This allows for proactive maintenance (always better) before a critical experiment is compromised or an expensive component fails outright.

Implementing digital tools to monitor lab instrument utilisation can lead to applicable insights, increased return on investment and enhanced operational efficiency.3 The result is fewer surprises, lower service costs and fewer disruptions to critical workflows.

Asset management also plays a vital role in audit readiness. Having calibration records, maintenance logs and alert histories readily available helps streamline quality assurance processes, and reduces the stress of regulatory inspections.4 Especially the case in good practice-compliant environments, ready access to this documentation can be the difference between a passed or failed audit.

Furthermore, asset tracking supports staff onboarding and offboarding by providing clear information about equipment location, maintenance schedules and associated protocols. This high degree of transparency supports knowledge transfer, reduces errors and fosters cross-functional collaboration.

From preventative to predictive: the new standard

The evolution of lab operations is no longer just about preventing equipment failure. With predictive insights, labs now have the power to anticipate issues before they arise.

This shift from reactive to anticipatory management is made possible through the integration of monitoring data, equipment health scores and historical performance trends, which are made possible by lab connectivity.

In a recent study, researchers found that optimising overall equipment effectiveness in pharmaceutical environments required identifying hidden losses and proactively resolving them.5 Intelligence-guided management tools can provide labs with this capability in real time, flagging subtle changes in performance that may indicate wear or environmental instability.

Essentially, predictive analytics empower labs to take pre-emptive actions and short-circuit catastrophes. For instance, a subtle increase in compressor cycle duration on a freezer may precede a critical failure by weeks or even months. Early intervention, on the other hand, can:

• Mitigate risk

• Reduce emergency service costs

• Protect valuable inventory.

Moreover, predictive models can support strategic capital planning by highlighting ageing assets that will likely require replacement within a specific time frame. This added foresight facilitates proactive budgeting and procurement while avoiding costly surprises or reactive purchases.

Managing the entire lab ecosystem

Effective lab design today requires managing all lab resources, not just high-value equipment. Every freezer, centrifuge, incubator and even secondary storage unit play a role in the overall system. Asset tracking solutions must support this complexity without overburdening staff or requiring manual inputs. When equipment data is siloed or incomplete, labs miss out on important correlations between environmental exposure and performance issues. For example, if a high-frequency alert on a CO2 incubator is tied to inconsistent room temperature, facility teams can intervene before it causes recurring deviations. But without integrated data from multiple systems, these issues remain invisible.6 The ability to connect lab infrastructure – physically and digitally – allows facilities to work as cohesive systems rather than fragmented parts. Integration with platforms like a laboratory information management system or electronic lab notebook further supports centralisation and transparency, making it easier for teams to collaborate and scale.

As laboratories grow and become more complex, integrating different monitoring modalities and connecting them to centralised dashboards or data lakes is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. From equipment placement to sensor density and alerting strategy, all aspects of infrastructure planning benefit from operational transparency.

The financial impact of smarter lab design

Ultimately, intelligent facility optimisation is good for the bottom line. A report by GEN outlined how strategic asset management helped one company increase equipment uptime and significantly reduce costs by identifying underutilised assets and refining maintenance schedules.7 The point is that these kinds of savings aren’t theoretical, they’re already being realised across the pharmaceutical sector and the larger life sciences industry. With accurate data, labs can rationalise their equipment inventory, reduce duplication and invest in multipurpose or higher-throughput equipment that replaces multiple legacy units. Maintenance budgets can be optimised by targeting high-risk or operationally critical assets, while extending intervals for low-risk ones based on actual usage.

Financial benefits aren’t just direct. They also include:

• Fewer service calls

• Reduced energy usage

• Less time lost to manual recordkeeping or searching for equipment.

The ability to maintain high operational performance with a leaner infrastructure portfolio enables labs to remain agile in the face of fluctuating workloads or economic uncertainty.

Doing more with what you have

In times of market uncertainty, cutting corners can compromise compliance and safety. Instead, labs should prioritise eliminating waste and enhancing visibility.

Investing in utilisation and asset management capabilities enables labs to become more agile, responsive and efficient, ensuring continuity and scientific integrity even amidst economic shifts. This approach also fosters a culture of operational excellence, where every asset contributes optimally to R&D goals. This brand of intelligent management becomes the bedrock for accelerating innovation, minimising risk and maximising the value of every investment.

It’s important to remember that modern lab design is about infrastructure that works harder and smarter, not necessarily bigger or newer. Leveraging existing capabilities isn’t a fallback strategy; it’s a future-proof one that builds resilience, enhances decision-making and sustains competitive advantage in a demanding industry.

Refining operations empowers labs to innovate responsibly and achieve more impactful scientific breakthroughs using their existing resources. This ultimately contributes to shaping the future of pharmaceutical development through smarter, more sustainable practices – to the benefit of all.

References

1. Visit: beckmancoulter.com/en/blog/diagnostics/consequences-of-unplanned-downtime-in-the-laboratory
2. Visit: labmanager.com/getting-started-with-data-drivenasset-management-30854
3. Visit: labmanager.com/digital-monitoring-tools-tooptimize-lab-instrument-utilization-33904
4. Visit: forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2023/0 drowning-in-unnecessary-work-heres-your-lifepreserver/
5. Visit: linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/ S2405844020306411
6. Visit: labmanager.com/optimizing-the-utilization-of-labassets-26730
7. Visit: genengnews.com/insights/laboratory-assetmanagement-is-thriving/