Streamlining Success: A Testing Consolidation Journey with DuPont
Do you ever find your R&D labs caught in a stagnant time warp, slowing your progress? Are you tirelessly juggling an array of testing processes, expending valuable resources, and enduring the burdensome weight of inefficient workflows? If so, it might be time to embark on a transformative path towards consolidating your testing. In a fireside chat in May, our Chief Product Officer Brandon Henning sat down with DuPont’s Information and Data Science Technical Manager, Christopher Dehen, PhD, to discuss the organization’s testing consolidation journey with STARLIMS:
• Why was it so critical to consolidate?
• What kind of considerations needed to be made to ensure success?
• And, most importantly, what benefits have they seen so far?
DuPont – Turning Possibilities into Real World Answers
Nylon, Lycra®, and Kevlar® – scientific innovations that have propelled markets to new heights. DuPont, a leading multinational specialty materials company, is on a mission to turn possibilities into real world answers that help humanity thrive. Offering a wide range of advanced labs and R&D centers scattered around the globe, DuPont is driving innovation across electronics, next-generation automotive, water, protection, and industrial technologies.
In recent years, DuPont’s portfolio has undergone a significant evolution. While various mergers and business unit consolidations have created massive technological achievements and business growth for the company, getting its new and existing R&D laboratories to collaborate and use the same processes has been a challenge. The result? Multiple laboratories operating on disparate, legacy technologies and systems, adding complexity and risk to an already complicated ecosystem.
Modernizing DuPont’s Laboratory Testing Ecosystem
With seven years at DuPont and 20 years in R&D labs and environments, Christopher Dehen is an expert at laboratory operations and technology. When tasked with finding out “how to consolidate the LIMS that are used within these labs to be able to help support them at a corporate level,” he knew that the consolidation, standardization, and modernization of the LIMS across multiple sites would be critical in promoting a collaborative and cohesive environment.
According to Dehen, there were three central components as to why now was the time to consolidate. To modernize its LIMS ecosystem, DuPont needed:
- Enhanced Security and digital tools to secure intellectual property
- Increased Collaboration throughout its global business units
- Improved Research Productivity to eliminate unnecessary repetition of experiments, increase knowledge sharing, and increase innovation and time-to-market
DuPont’s primary goal was to quickly improve productivity, while still having the flexibility to adapt to changing processes and workflows. The process of modernizing and standardizing the testing ecosystem was no small feat. With the help of laboratory informatics consultancy CSols, the first six months alone were dedicated to collecting user requirements from various DuPont R&D labs to ensure the company could thoroughly evaluate a myriad of LIMS providers before choosing STARLIMS as one of their LIMS solutions.
The benefits have been worth it: multiple labs across the globe within a single business unit are operating on STARLIMS, which has increased productivity, streamlined workflows, and propelled scientific innovation. Having started with just two labs, the success DuPont has seen so far with STARLIMS has prompted the company to expand its laboratory consolidation to six labs, with plans to add more in the future.
Thank you to Lab Manager for hosting us for this fireside chat! Watch the full conversation on-demand to learn more about DuPont and STARLIMS’ testing consolidation journey, and answers to questions like:
- Should I use a LIMS or an ELN for R&D? What’s the difference?
- What kind of change management do you need to consolidate?
- How can I get started on a consolidation journey?
- How do I pick the right system for me?
