Case Study · Pro-curo Software Ltd

Tracking samples to the bench and to the person who took them

Manchester University · University research group

The challenge

A research group with several freezers and nitrogen storage vessels needed to know which technician removed which samples, and to which lab bench. Freezer-level tracking was not enough: samples spend working hours out of storage, and that is exactly when the record usually goes quiet.

What was put in place

Named bench locations (Lab Bench 01 to 04) were set up in addition to standard freezer storage, so a bench is a tracked location like any other.
Technicians search for samples and print pick lists.
Samples are scanned out to a bench barcode, then scanned back to freezer storage when finished, or a disposal is recorded with a reason.
Project-based access control ensures each research group sees only its own data.

The outcome

The record covers the part of a sample's life that usually goes untracked: the hours it spends out of the freezer, on a named bench, in the hands of a named person.

Who this is relevant to

Shared laboratories where several groups use the same storage, and where accountability for material in use matters as much as accountability for material in storage.

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