Tanja Gvardjančič
PREGL DIGITAL is the digital dimension of smart laboratory furniture, which is designed and developed to help laboratory personnel with everyday laboratory challenges. We developed smart furniture together with Maribor startup company Agitron. It is the first furniture of its kind in the world, which enables very precise monitoring of the location, stock and consumption of laboratory equipment and chemicals. It enables employees in the laboratory to access all the necessary information significantly faster, thereby increasing efficiency, optimizing inventory management and saving time.
Regardless of the situation in which the organization finds itself, superiors can ensure that those who are above average at work and in cooperation with others are rewarded, as they can use non-financial rewards, which are more favorable for the employer and more motivating for the employee.
It is a mistaken belief that if there is no money, there is no possibility of achieving good business results. If we imagine; in many companies that offer their employees higher wages, employees are still not engaged in work. Non-financial rewards are usually those that arouse internal motivation in an individual and thus influence greater motivation, satisfaction and efficiency of employees.
Each individual has his own reward system in his brain, with which he evaluates various stimuli that come from the outside world. Only a sufficiently strong and important stimulus will provoke action in an individual. That is why it is important for employers to know what employees want, what they expect from the company, what they are like by nature, and how to motivate them to be as efficient as possible at work.
PREGL DIGITAL enables the optimization of materials procurement planning, cost reduction and, due to less hazardous waste, contributes to sustainability, digitization and a lower burden on the environment.
About a year and a half ago, we started developing the first smart laboratory furniture, which will greatly help laboratories, institutes and other institutions to eliminate the challenges they face in the procurement, use and record keeping of chemicals and laboratory equipment, and thus lead them to digitization faster processes and consequently the laboratory itself. The key challenge was how to equip drawers, under counter cabinets, storage cabinets, hoods, etc. in the laboratory. with information about the content and how to enable the laboratory staff to find the necessary material quickly and easily.
Together with the company Agitron from Maribor, we developed an application that allows employees in laboratories to connect processes ranging from inventory management, locations, safety data sheets to ordering automation. At the same time, it solves most problems in laboratories, such as: where exactly a certain laboratory inventory is located, how much it is, when it expires, etc.. The system will also enable the reservation of devices used by several employees, inform about the dates of regular service interventions and enable management of received samples and storage of methods.
When creating the smart laboratory furniture program, we always kept the users in mind and strictly followed the strict rules of the Chemicals Act, which precisely defines the methods of use and record keeping for dangerous chemicals (corrosive, flammable, explosive, toxic, etc.). The application, together with displays built into furniture or installed on refrigerators and freezers, enables easy management of stocks by individual microlocations (cupboards). Thus, users can check the stock and location of a certain chemical or equipment at any time.
The system warns about the safety stock, and in the case of chemicals, also about the expiration dates – both in the application and with warnings on the furniture itself. It provides the laboratory staff with significantly faster access to all necessary information. In the case of chemicals, these are safety data sheets and certificates of analysis, and in the case of appliances, service instructions and instructions for use, as well as various reports.
The system is already basically equipped with data for more than 800,000 laboratory materials (chemicals and accessories) and enables inspection and monitoring of use both in one laboratory and centrally in all laboratories of an individual organization.
PREGL DIGITAL digital screens are the first of their kind, designed, developed and manufactured specifically for the complex environment of a modern laboratory. With e-paper with high contrast and a viewing angle of almost 180°, they offer easy readability of dynamically displayed content where and when you need it. With battery life, you won’t remember the last time you changed your battery. The system is connected via a Wi-Fi network.
During the development, we also took into account the sustainability aspect – namely, by warning about the expiry of the use-by date, the system enables users to dispose of less hazardous waste and thus reduce the burden on the environment and, consequently, lower the costs of their incineration. From the system, it will be possible to obtain data on the occupancy of individual devices, which leads to better utilization of only these devices and easier elimination of bottlenecks.
