Let's Talk About The Latest Old News – The Return Of The Paperless Lab

What is a Paperless Lab?
A Paperless Lab integrates the laboratory with the enterprise and automates systems by eliminating paper-based, manual and error-prone processes. While most companies have invested in many instruments and software solutions in the laboratory, manufacturing and the enterprise to improve operations, these systems are not seamlessly integrated, creating data silos, or standalone information repositories that do not communicate with one another. By automating operations and integrating these individual solutions, organizations can reduce paperwork, increase efficiency and throughput, automate regulatory compliance, reduce costs, foster collaboration and make faster, better informed business decisions.

What’s Wrong with Paper?
The benefits of using paper are evident. It’s easy to use, convenient, portable and legally defensible; plus, it requires little (or no) user training and supports multiple data types. Unfortunately paper also has some major drawbacks. It introduces security risks, it’s expensive, it’s not searchable, it’s not collaborative, there are significant storage issues and, perhaps most importantly, it’s error prone and susceptible to transcription mistakes. In any process, the handling of paper is almost always a manual (human) activity. And manual activity is inherently prone to errors.