Biochemical facilities house skilled researchers and scientists, extremely valuable equipment, and sensitive information regarding experiments and products, just to name a few of the most important responsibilities someone who runs such a facility has to contend with. It should go without saying that a facilities manager should want to work in the best building possible for their own sake as well as for their employees and clients.
Upgrading facilities can involve something as large as moving to a completely new building or as simple as replacing an old piece of equipment or installing new commercial steel doors. Optimizing floor plans for maximum efficiency is also a budget-friendly approach that can work wonders.
Biochemical facilities are typically used by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, where facility workers seek to create and enhance new products to improve the quality of life. Considering the vital nature of this work, it comes as no surprise that it’s in high demand, and the market size for biotechnology continues to grow. In fact, it’s expected to reach a value of $727.1 billion by 2025.
Naturally, many biochemical facilities are currently trying to produce a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 as quickly as possible, and there are already ways for applicants to sign up for clinical trials.
While it’s certainly possible to work with an older building or older tools if they haven’t become obsolete yet, making updates to these facilities come with undeniable benefits. Just a few include increased efficiency, better safety, higher levels of security, and lower maintenance costs. Here are some of the most common upgrades to biochemical facilities worth considering.
New Lab Space
It’s common for a lack of available space to become an issue in laboratories, particularly if they’re adding new equipment and researchers. While relocating to an entirely new building may be out of your budget, you can always make better use of the space you do have, or you may even be able to add a new wing to the building.
Of course, it’s best to optimize floor plans before construction, but you can always draw inspiration from more efficient labs and reorganize.
If you find that your needs are growing beyond what your facility can handle, but you still need to remain in the building, you may want to add a new section to your lab. This is especially important if it’s becoming difficult to separate wet labs (where chemicals and biological matter are used) from dry labs (where computer systems are).
While open floor plans are becoming more common in labs to encourage collaboration, wet labs and dry labs need to be separated by walls of appropriate thickness in order to ensure contaminants aren’t spread between them. Naturally, if a new wing connects to the outside, it needs to be sealed off with durable steel doors and other security measures.
Equipment and Services
Older equipment inevitably breaks down, and with constant, rapid advancements in technology, seemingly cutting-edge equipment may become obsolete sooner than expected. Because of this, replacing equipment is naturally one of the most common updates any advanced science facility makes. Commonly replaced pieces of equipment include fridges, freezers, filters, tanks, and glassware. Any time a facility takes on a new client can be a cause to change equipment as well, in case they’re required to perform different work from the usual.
Manufacturing facilities, in particular, may need to acquire new services for things like cell culture, fermentation, and protein processing and purification. Process development biotech is crucial for biomanufacturing to create and commercialize products in a manageable amount of time. With the right technology and experts using it, you can ensure all your products can be made routinely and consistently meet all guidelines and specifications before being produced at scale.
Integrated Software
These days, data is one of the most valuable resources any organization has, and it goes double for laboratories. Biochemical facilities have to be certain that their data is as accurate and current as possible to ensure the safety of their products, and they need the best analytics software to do it.
Industrial application software collects, manipulates, and manages information on a grand scale, which is perfect for facilities that may deal with things as complicated as genetics.
Data is at its most useful when it’s gathered into a single database, and it’s best for this process to be as automated as possible. Different lab equipment can use different data formats, which means some packets of data can easily become isolated.
It’s possible for researchers to manually share data between such disparate systems, but it can be a time-consuming process and one that’s prone to errors. By taking advantage of laboratory software integration, you can connect your equipment and software solutions automatically.
Laboratory integration solutions work by connecting to your equipment and translating its communication protocols into open formats. In other words, it enables all your systems to use the same data structure, so you can access all your information from a single source in real-time.
This makes it easy to gain new insights as soon as data becomes available, and without the need to share data manually, you can cut costs and free up researchers for more important tasks.
Cybersecurity
Biochemical facilities naturally work with a great deal of sensitive information about their clients, products, and processes, so their cybersecurity needs to be top-notch. For pharmaceutical and biotech companies, cyberattacks that steal information are more than a PR nightmare. These industries are made by the information they research, so losing information is equivalent to losing their foundation.
It’s not so much a question of “if” your organization will be attacked—it’s more a question of “when?” Perimeter defenses, such as firewalls, are great, but they often aren’t enough anymore. Setting up more effective cybersecurity comes back to data management.
Thanks to advancements in machine learning, computer algorithms can use data collected about normal system operations and detect abnormalities and potential threats immediately, giving IT teams the ability to react in real-time. Implementing proper access control protocols also ensures that employees only have access to data they actually need for their tasks, which cuts down on the possibility of cyber threats coming from within.
Cloud-Enabled Cameras
Cybersecurity is of the utmost importance, but facilities can’t afford to go easy on physical security either. The right camera system can make all the difference when protecting your biochemical facility from the outside and within. Traditional DVR and NVR camera systems use outdated technology and have multiple security vulnerabilities, which means you shouldn’t trust them for your facility.
Verkada cameras are cloud-enabled, and they’re each protected by a pair of security keys. One key is stored on the camera’s physical SSD while the other key is stored in the cloud. This prevents each camera from being accessed remotely, and it also ensures a camera won’t reveal its secrets even if it’s physically stolen. Check Verkada reviews to see what enterprise-level organizations are saying about their security.
These security cameras are also connected to a mobile app that you can use with any approved device, like a tablet or smartphone, to monitor your video feed from any location. This helps grant facility managers peace of mind, and advanced cameras can even automatically alert law enforcement when detecting unusual activity after hours.
Industrial applications aren’t known for being easy to change, and it’s even recommendable to always make the most of the equipment you have. When you do need to make upgrades, though, these suggestions are all worth considering to improve your facility’s performance and security.
