The efficient Lab

“A place for everything, everything in its place” – Benjamin Franklin

Research excellence and efficiency start with an organized lab and workbench. Implementing a robust organizational system will reduce time wasted locating reagents or samples, and maximize your lab budget by reducing 

• unexpected depletion of supplies or reagents,
• time wasted waiting for depleted materials to arrive,
• instances of expired or misplaced materials necessitating re-ordering, and,
• resources (time, effort, and money) spent on duplicate orders.

An organized space applies to every area in the lab from the workbench, consumables area, reagents cabinet, and cold storage units, to cell culture room.

Shared Consumables Space

Almost every lab has an area where researchers can obtain consumables from. Based on the research conducted in the lab, this can vary from serological pipettes, pipette tips, glassware, syringes, needles, gloves, and paper towels to petri dishes, etc. 

It is best practice to place all shared items in a location that is readily accessible to everyone and in the same room as where the work would be done. This means that a consumables space would need to be set up in each room to suit its function, such as maintaining cell culture flasks and dishes in the cell culture room.

Tools

The diagram above illustrates how you can easily organize the shared consumables in your lab with clearly labeled bins. I have used this same methodology to organize cell culture consumables in cell culture rooms and reagents in cold storage units.

Understandably, there is a cost associated with organizing a lab when you have to purchase bins. An interim measure could be to use the cardboard boxes that come with consumables, however, note that these boxes are difficult to disinfect and, depending on your lab environment, can cause fungi growth so investing in plastic bins would be a better long-term solution.  

How?

In terms of the organization of the space, aim to place frequently accessed items at or below eye level but bear in mind NEVER to store heavy, bulky items and chemicals above eye level! Also, ensure that older stock is used up first and newer stock is placed at the back. This will minimize the chances of holding onto older, possibly expired items and ensure good inventory turnover. 

Suppose this is the only inventory your lab will maintain (working inventory) without a backend stock inventory to replenish from. In that case, it might be beneficial to indicate the quantity at which the item needs to be reordered e.g. reorder 10ml serological pipettes at 5 bags. This quantity can be specified on the bin label e.g. 10ml Serological pipettes (reorder at 5 bags) so that anyone who notices the inventory has fallen below this number can trigger an order to replenish the stock.

If your lab maintains a backend inventory to store consumables (common in larger labs), the stock inventory should be maintained similarly. This stock inventory should ideally be locked up and managed by a small group of individuals who use it to replenish the working inventory and check the stock regularly.

Space in labs is a luxury so in instances where a dedicated cabinet is not available, get creative and use any spaces that can be safely used for storage like overhead shelves, drawers, or small shelving units. Another key to maximizing space is to use vertical space such as stackable bins, glove box holders, serological pipette holders, etc. 

A chemicals storage space would follow the same methodology; however, remember that the organization of chemicals must be based on compatibility!

Last but not least, to make this an intuitive system for everyone in a shared space, clearly label EVERYTHING! This is the best way to align expectations and ensure things go in the right place.  

Cold Storage Units

Cold storage units are the life of the lab as they keep researchers’ materials stable for short or long periods. Unfortunately, despite their importance, these units also tend to be the lab's most overlooked and unorganized systems. 

Denoting a location to every sample in these units is critical as cold storage space is limited and without an organization system in place, locating the one vial for your work amongst the numerous samples would be a nightmare. Furthermore, leaving these units open for long periods, and searching for a sample puts a load on the compressor as it has to work harder to cool the unit to reach the set point. Systematically labeled, organized, and inventoried materials save researchers significant frustration and time, which would be better spent fruitfully on their research. 

Setting up an organization system from day one is best, however, with some group effort, it is never too late to implement one as it would benefit all researchers in the future. 

Tools

The first step to organization is getting the right tools.

The secret to optimal organization is to utilize vertical space as much as possible and this can be achieved by selecting cold storage units with adjustable shelves. Adjust the shelves' height to suit your needs or add extra shelves to maximize storage space. 

Additional tools would depend on the purpose of the storage space such as bins to store commonly used larger items such as, kits, reagents, or solutions. Stackable bins also come in handy if you cannot obtain extra shelves (e.g. unavailable shelves or cost considerations) as these allow you to store more items in the same space. However, keep in mind that shelves have a maximum load they can bear so check the manual or contact the manufacturer to get this number to avoid overloading the shelf. 

Before purchasing bins, take detailed measurements to ensure they fit in the intended space! A minute but helpful detail is to use CLEAR bins if possible as they allow the contents to be seen easily (especially small bottles that tend to get hidden). Bins also confine any spills that might occur, elongating the unit's life and preventing damage to other researchers’ materials. Finally, do not forget to clearly label these bins when organizing material by function and/or user. 

To store items such as cryoboxes, falcon tubes, or even plates, stainless steel racks with pull-out drawers are the best solution! The racks and drawers can be clearly labeled using a system that suits your lab and allows for quick retrieval of materials.

How?

Once you have the right tools/storage solution for your space, it is time to organize and label each rack, row, and box to define a home for every sample. This information can be tracked in an excel sheet, electronic lab notebook or an inventory management system that your lab might already use. 

Below is an example of such an excel sheet. It is best to keep this file in a location that can be accessed by all lab members such as your institutional cloud storage solution e.g. OneDrive, Google drive, or Dropbox. However, it would be up to the lab supervisor to determine if information about all or select material (e.g. shared material only) should be shared.

If you are just starting out in a lab and are unsure of your research direction, you might be starting with just one cryobox, so, start by cataloging all the material in this box. If your needs change in the future and one type of material expands necessitating a dedicated box, re-organize your material accordingly. 

If you are re-organizing and inventorying a large amount of existing material, it might be worthwhile to determine your organization system first. The organization system would be determined by various factors such as number of researchers and types of material in your lab. For instance, the racks, drawers or cryoboxes can be organized by user, and further organized by material type. 

Once you have determined the organization system, start with one shelf, one box at a time, keeping similar items in one location e.g. if you will be working with numerous primers or enzymes, dedicate a box for these. Furthermore, capture relevant details in this database such as primer sequences, concentration, volume etc. to allow for ease of re-ordering or reference instead of having to pull out tubes from storage to retrieve this information. 

To accurately capture the various samples generated from experiments and equipment or reagents used for these experiments, these materials should be captured accurately and exactly in your laboratory notebook for ease of traceability and retrieval. 

Finally, for this system to work, it is critical that each tube is returned to its designated location (home) or that space is freed up once the tube has been depleted. Compliance with this process every single time a tube is accessed is critical to ensure it is usable and the lab stays efficient.

This organization strategy can be adapted for any area used for storage of large amounts of materials ranging from liquid nitrogen tanks, drosophila incubators, all lab equipment or even something as simple as microscope sample slides.