What makes an excellent laboratory?

Companies are about profit and loss, output and OEE, ROI, euros or dollars, share prices, image and PR, the leaders or CEOs, quarterly or annual figures and the products. But what is less or not visible at the front, are the equally important supporting activities in an organisation, such as HR, Maintenance, Technological Staff, R&D, IT and service departments and ... Laboratories.

What actually makes a laboratory excellent?

Frequently heard terms are Quality System, Standardisation, Normalisation and ISO17025 or ISO9001 or ISOTS16949....and probably much more.
And yes, a good quality system is indispensable for a good organisation, standardisation is essential for an efficient and reliable producer of materials and products and standards are the tools to achieve a good quality system and standardisation.

Too often Managers think in terms of makeable: if you set up enough requirements, laws, systems, rules, work instructions, markings, routes, definitions, it doesn't matter who performs it. Not infrequently, in the case of errors and deviations, the gaps are closed with even more "special" rules and instructions. How often do you see in the handling of customer complaints that "re-instruction" of the concerning production section will take place for the relevant group of people!

But what do you want to see in your lab?
Perhaps it’s leadership and ownership with a vision for continuous improvement, focus on quality not quantity, with an intrinsic sense of the highest standard, knowing that people's health and safety comes first, having a plan to implement the vision into practice, recognise where the strengths and weaknesses lie and have the flexibility and creativity to adjust where and when necessary, set realistic goals so that organisations and people do not tiptoe their way through the worklife and therefore also minimise multitasking, automate where possible, do work with passion, work really smart and taking the time and getting resources to do it, knowing and trusting their talents and also giving and receiving recognition for it.

That requires a new kind of leadership, which facilitates that people are in the right place, get the best out of themselves, receive pleasure and motivation from their work, understand what is needed and why, having the equipment and work environment to excel, orderly and relevant working methods, systems and, yes also standardisation, are given to support them and for the sole purpose of making the work easier.
And that is leadership that recognises and acknowledges that people are central to an organisation and that only people can raise good standardisation to the level of excellence.