What factors can contribute to a testing backlog?

• Sudden increase of unscheduled work
• Work force depletion. E.g. Illness or annual leave
• Equipment maintenance or breakdown
• Update to regulations, resulting in more analytical tests
• Lack of trained analysts

How to tackle a testing backlog?

There are many ways to tackle a testing back log.

• Test like for like - Review the types of products that are on your backlog, can you test them together? Here at BCM we are fortunate to have methods that can test a variety of products at a single time. Combining these tests together allows us to free up analysts to perform other tasks.

• Prioritising by deadline date - It is sometimes beneficial to test the first sample that arrived in the lab. However, this only makes sense if all of the samples being tested have the same deadline. What a nice world to live in. However, most testing facilities will have a number of samples with varied deadline dates, one prime example would be a lab that test’s both release samples and stability samples. Release samples are pivotal for the release of product, whereas stability samples are mainly for monitoring purposes. Release testing will be expected to be complete in a few days where as stability samples may not need testing for weeks.

• Increase analyst capacity - An obvious solution would be to increase the number of analysts available. However, recruitment of analysts can often be a task that requires weeks or months as opposed to a few days. Most of the time a backlog will be due to unforeseen circumstances meaning that hiring more staff may not be the best solution. There is however an alternative to this. Implement overtime or weekend working, extending your working week from 5 to 7 days is an easy way of increasing your labs capacity. Implement shift patterns, a limiting factor how much an analyst can do in a day is down to equipment availability. Instead of purchasing more kit, why not use the equipment you have over 2 shifts in a single day?

• Increase equipment capacity - Increasing your staff availability is a great way to tackle the backlog however, if your analyst’s don’t have the equipment to perform their tasks then it is likely that your backlog will increase. Buying more equipment is a simple step to tackle a backlog, but it can be expensive.

• Outsource your analysis - One final option would be to outsource work to a third party testing facility. By having a third party lab available, you are able to send out your surplus analysis without having to invest in more equipment or pay money for overtime hours.

BCM Analytical Services is a contract testing facility that not only facilitates Stability studies for BCM manufacture products, but we also provide contract testing for a number of customers. BCM have the capabilities to take on your surplus analysis from raw material testing to full stability trials.



If you are interesting in outsourcing your analytical testing, or would like to build a partnership with BCM Analytical services, please get in touch.