Help4Lab: Software Modulare per gestire Qualità, Sicurezza, Ambiente e Documenti in un laboratorio di ricerca

Quality principles and methodologies have been widely used in industrial and business applications,givingpositiveadvantagesin termsofgoodmanagement,resultsimprovement andcostreduction.Thisapproachhaslongbeenignoredinscientificresearchwhich bytheir nature are often far from the industrial and business fields. Our aim was to generate and apply a Quality management system (QMS) for a research lab, working in the area of Life Sciences. Specifically, we have selected a research laboratory, called MarLab, working with marine animalmodelsin the scientific area of drug discovery and embryonic development. From among various others (i.e., GLP, ISO17025, etc.), we chose to implement the ISO 9001:2008Qualitysystem.AsspecifiedbytheISOstandardandinagreementwiththeheads of the laboratory, we first defined the Quality policy. Next, we identified operational and supportprocessestobemanaged,stakeholders,recipients,andsuppliers.Wealsogenerated theprocedures,operatinginstructions,guidelinesand forms tocoveralllaboratoryaspects. Recently, MarLab received the certification of all activities according to the ISO 9001:2008 standard. To facilitate the management of the QMS we have also developed a modular software, Help4Lab. We expected that this QMS model could be a new laboratory organization, motivating the staff towards a continuous improvement of shared operations andenhancingcommunicationbetweenallmanagementlevelsandpersonnel.Suchasystem wouldalsoensurethereliabilityoftheresultsofresearchlaboratories.Furthermore,theQMS modelwouldincreasetheprestigeofthelaboratoryandthePublicResearchInstitution.