Case Study: How Managed Hours Can Work for You

Challenge

A world-wide commercial manufacturing company initially outsourced its raw materials and excipient release work to Lancaster Laboratories utilizing the fee-for-service model, which involves attaining a specific quote for each material and issuing a purchase order/invoice payment on each and every material sent for testing. As the volume of material types being tested grew to 30-50 each year, the traditional process of obtaining a quote and PO for each project became a bottle neck in the process.

Adhering to established timelines for getting materials shipped for testing and obtaining certificates of analysis were critical elements for keeping production on track. Equally important to this process was the ability to properly allocate the cost of the raw material testing to the appropriate product being manufactured.

Solution

To help the client meet their goals for production and cost allocation, Lancaster Labs implemented the managed hours program to streamline the raw materials and excipient testing process. We provided a competitive hourly labor rate for routine raw materials analysis and tracked the hours spent on each type of material we receive to provide a monthly invoice accompanied by a utilization report to show a break-out of the testing activity by material type. Not only did this new process save time, it also minimized administrative costs associated with processing purchase orders and invoices and even saved them money on rush fees for expedited requests as rush fees are waived under this service model. In the end, the client received the same deliverables with the same quality of service that we previously provided, including 24-hour data access via LabAccess.com^SM, but in a more concise, cost-effective manner.