Proper laboratory equipment planning impacts process flows, physical spaces and utility requirements, and drives requirements for ventilation, power and utilities. That was the message HERA President Laurie Sperling presented at the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) Summit and Salute in New Orleans.
Sperling spoke as part of the WeInnovate session at the conference to introduce EQ-IPS, HERA’s proprietary iPad-based application that allows the firm to offer equipment planning services ranging from inventory of existing equipment to programming, planning, selecting and estimating costs of laboratory and major scientific equipment. The tool incorporates on-site inventory and equipment planning to provide comprehensive laboratory solutions to clients, saving researchers’ time doing their own inventory, assisting with capital budget purchases and coordinating engineering systems’ requirements.
Through the use of EQ-IPS, HERA equipment planners feed information into our substantial project database that generates reports for electronic equipment packages including critical information such as move management data, comprehensive utility information and budget estimates. To date, HERA has catalogued nearly 3,000 pieces of equipment. This data allows HERA to anticipate and coordinate laboratory equipment details from early in the planning process through construction. Clients benefit by avoiding cost overruns, maximizing square footage and workflow and minimizing scheduling delays.
This specialized approach to equipment planning garners significant results for our clients. During pre-design for Eastern Kentucky University’s new $91 million Science Building, HERA generated a program cost model that reduced the equipment and furnishings budget from $17.5 million to $10.7 million. At Bristol-Myers Squibb, our equipment planning strategy saved 20% of net area for more than 17,000 net square feet in mass spectrometer labs by redesigning the workstation and equipment array.
Learn more about how EQ-IPS can help your laboratory project.