Why lab inventory needs more than a supply count
Laboratory consumables carry two separate expiry clocks: a sealed shelf-life date, and a shorter usable window once opened or reconstituted. A reagent bottle can be well within its sealed expiry but already unusable weeks after opening—tracking only the sealed date on the label misses this second, often more restrictive, constraint entirely.
Stockouts in a lab setting have an outsized cost relative to the item's price. A missing reagent mid-protocol doesn't just delay a purchase—it can invalidate a run, waste other consumables already committed to that experiment, and cost hours or days of researcher time waiting on a reorder, all for an item that might cost very little on its own.
Lot-to-lot variation matters more in a lab than in most retail contexts: a reagent from a new lot can behave slightly differently in a sensitive assay, so knowing exactly which lot was used in which experiment is often a genuine scientific requirement, not just good bookkeeping.
What to track for reagents and consumables
Track both the sealed expiry date and the opened-usable window per item, with the date opened logged at the point of use so staff can see remaining usable life at a glance rather than guessing. Record lot numbers at receiving and, where protocols require it, log which lot was used in which experiment or batch for traceability.
Set reorder points based on real consumption per bench or protocol rather than a single lab-wide guess—an assay run weekly consumes a reagent at a very different rate than one run only during a specific project phase, and a shared reorder point across both will be wrong for at least one of them.
StockFlow tracks lot numbers and expiry per location with phone barcode scanning, so logging a reagent as opened or receiving a new shipment takes seconds at the bench instead of a separate paper logbook.
- Track sealed expiry and opened-usable window separately
- Log lot numbers at receiving for traceability
- Set reorder points per bench/protocol, not lab-wide averages
- Flag near-expiry reagents before they're needed for a run
Multi-lab facilities and shared cores
Facilities running multiple labs or a shared equipment/reagent core face the familiar pattern: one lab over-orders a reagent that sits unused near its expiry while another lab runs out of the same item mid-protocol. Shared visibility across labs lets a facility manager transfer near-expiry stock to the lab that needs it, or consolidate ordering across labs to negotiate better terms with suppliers.
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