Case Study
Biotechnology Lab Notebook Scanning
Details
Industry: Biotechnology
A biotechnology company was storing their lab notebooks in multiple areas within their office and wanted to be able to easily access them in one place. The majority of books could be unbound for scanning, whereas some needed to be kept in their original format. Recordsforce digitized the notebooks dependent upon their needs and delivered the digital images. The company received a customized solution to fit their exact needs, including a process for retrieval that is more efficient.
Analyzing The Problem
A biotechnology company had over 1,000 lab notebooks at their facility. They were looking for a way to store all of their lab notebooks in the same place to keep up with continuity, but also to make the information they may need easier to retrieve. Only around 30% of their notebooks are required to be physically kept for regulatory purposes, which means about 70% of the notebooks can be shredded once digitization is complete. Notebook scanning is typically costlier and more time consuming than regular document scanning. This made the biotechnology company hesitant to begin a scanning project.
Creating A Customized Solution
Recordsforce created a customized solution for the different needs of their books. We received their lab notebooks at our SSAE-18 SOC 1 Type II facility and organized which lab notebooks were to be shredded, and which ones would need to be sent back to the organization. Recordsforce was then able to take the lab notebooks that could be shredded after digitization and unbind the books. Unbinding the lab notebooks allows them to move through our high speed scanners, versus our notebook scanner. The process was as follows:
- Recordsforce checked in the lab notebooks into our PACE system, which allowed the organization to get real-time status updates and track the progress of their digitization.
- The lab notebooks that could be shredded had their bindings removed.
- Next, the lab notebooks that had their bindings removed were sent through through our high-speed scanners, and the lab notebooks that were required to be sent back to the company were scanned through our Atiz book scanning machines.
- The images were quality checked by our Recordsforce technicians for best resolution and clarity.
- Recordsforce indexed these required data fields through manual keying or automated data recognition in our specialized data capture software, and then were quality reviewed for completeness and accuracy.
- Once the files were prepped, scanned, indexed and quality reviewed, the files were sent back to the biotechnology company via SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol).
Instant Results
The biotechnology company now had all of their lab notebooks digitized and in one central location. This made is possible to run their operations more smoothly and save on resources. Now that their lab notebooks were digital, they were able to feel confident that their important and confidential information was secure and also safe from natural disasters. Their research is fully protected and they are given better visibility, even allowing researchers to retrieve data from past research for review, further study, and sharing, if necessary. The organization was also able to reduce their physical space requirement needed for storing all the physical lab notebooks. Recordsforce’s customized lab notebook scanning solution allowed the organization to save money while also receiving exactly what they needed.
