How to Find a Safe and Trusted Contract Lab?

Why do you need contract labs? Contract lab services are often required because your company might not have the specialized lab setting that you need for a particular project or study.

After all, it’s not possible to have all sorts of equipment in a lab if they are not regularly used. That would lead companies to waste an unnecessary amount of money and resources on something that doesn’t yield commensurate returns.

And even if you have the equipment, the lab might not have trained professionals who are proficient at using those pieces of equipment to successfully carry out such experiments.

Contract labs have professionals with various kinds of scientific expertise. They can, therefore, carry out a wide variety of experiments with great ease, as a certain department or team will have extensive experience in that particular domain.

This allows you to choose the exact contract lab services that you need for a certain project.

But the real question is: How to find a safe and trusted contract lab?

Read this article to find out which factors to cross off your checklist while you are choosing a contract lab.

Factors to Keep in Mind While Choosing a Safe and Trusted Contract Lab:

1. Accreditation-

The very first thing you should look for while searching for a contract lab is ISO 17025 accreditation. This certificate is not just meant to increase the credibility of the contract lab that you are opting for.

Very often, official government bodies like the FDA will not give a market clearance to drugs or products unless they have been tested by an ISO 17025 accredited contract lab. Only after you have checked this mandatory accreditation can you move on to other factors.

2. Quality Management-

This is closely related to the first point, that is, accreditation. The ISO 17025 certificate is granted by an external body that passes its judgment after inspecting the lab.

However, a quality management system is an internal assessment system. The lab has to consistently keep track of the experiments it is conducting and the results that it is achieving.

Only through constant vigilance of its own inner workings can it improve its services. Therefore, you must also ensure that the contract lab services that you are opting for have a robust internal quality management system in place.

3. Disclosure of Subcontracting-

Just like you are outsourcing your testing to a contract lab, the contract lab too can outsource the testing to a subcontracted lab. This might occur when the testing requires extremely niche equipment that is not available at a regular lab.

But in case the contract lab is engaged in such subcontracting, they must disclose this information to you so that you can check the accreditation of the sub-contracted lab.

Any contract lab with the necessary accreditations is required to supply you with this information prior to testing. If they do not disclose their subcontracting activities – or have been accused of not doing so in the past – this might be a major red flag that you should look out for.

4. Confidentiality Clause-

All contract labs work with various companies which might be market competitors. This is why you need to ensure that your company’s testing data is not leaked to the competing company. Most contract labs train their staff to maintain strict confidentiality.

The samples of various companies also need to be kept separate. The easiest way to ensure that the contract lab services you are opting for will maintain your confidentiality is by having them sign a confidentiality clause prior to testing.

5. Geography-

This basically refers to where the lab is located. While this might not seem like a big deal initially, if you are conducting food testing or working with any perishables, your lab has to be located close by.

Even if you manage to find the perfect contract lab across the country, the truth is that the integrity of the samples will not be maintained during the transport process. Also, the time taken to send the samples to-and-fro affects the turnaround time of the experiment and its results. So, make sure you are keeping the distance of the contract lab in mind while choosing one.

6. Communication with Staff-

You don’t just need a staff that is competent and well-trained in their own field, you need a staff that can understand your priorities. Unless you can communicate what you want to the laboratory staff, all of the above points will be futile.

The staff needs to have prior experience in working with similar clients and handling tests like this one. Therefore, simply checking the educational qualifications of the staff members won’t help.

7. Reputation in the Industry-

However vague this criterium sounds, it is important if you are trying to get a market clearance. There might be accredited labs that are known for not turning out accurate results by industry regulars.

Or they might have a really good reputation with other companies, but they might be performing botched experiments when it comes to products like yours. To find out whether the lab services that you are opting for have a good reputation, you need to collect the opinions of similar companies which have worked with this particular contract lab in the past.

8. Timely Results-

Will the contract lab of your choice provide you with the results on time? This is a very important question that needs answering before you can choose a contract lab.

To ensure that the lab supplies you with timely results, you can ask for regular updates. If you set a timeline with particular goals, all you need to do is check whether the goals are being achieved on a timely basis by the contract lab. No matter how great a lab is, unless it can supply the results on time, the results will be futile.

In Conclusion

Of course, you also need to keep the cost factor in mind when you are engaging the services of a contract lab. Besides that, if you manage to get positive responses to all of the above questions on your checklist, you can rest assured that the contract lab services of your choice will be up to the mark. Also, make sure that the contract lab is well-equipped to deal with the specificities of your particular experiment.