Merck KGaA uses Binocs to increase their QC performance

In 2018, Merck KGaA started to use Binocs in one of their QC labs in Switzerland. Thanks to good collaboration between the teams, it only took four months to have the first lab sections up and running. Based on this first positive experience, further support to deliver optimized QC lab performance is underway at their other sites.

What is Binocs?

Binocs is an enterprise-ready, cloud-based software that combines both scheduling and capacity management in 1 tool and user interface. It’s an end-to-end solution that continuously synchronizes with external sources (LIMS, ERP, …) and automatically groups samples into campaigns.

It is a digital schedule board that is automatically generated, easy to fine-tune by the planners, and easy for the lab analysts to interact with (touch screen to tick off activities). This saves planners a lot of time and gives everyone a real-time view of the schedule at any point in time. It helps users to clear or avoid a backlog.

What are the advantages of Binocs?

Using Binocs results in a more time-efficient scheduling process. The time spent creating a daily schedule can be more than halved. In addition, Binocs schedules intelligently considering different priorities, automatically calculating due dates, considering availabilities/competences/available equipment… all with a click of a button.

From daily scheduling to capacity management

In addition to using Binocs as a scheduling tool (short-term planning), it can also be used as a capacity management tool (mid to long term planning). Users know what workload to expect and can easily determine whether there’s enough capacity to meet that workload. In Binocs you can deep-dive into why there will be a capacity shortage (equipment, competence, team members availability, …) and run ‘what-if’ scenarios to pro-actively explore solutions like changing priorities and timelines, train to upskill team members, move staff, share equipment between teams, add external staffing, outsource tasks…

Do you want to discover how Binocs can support your resource planning and scheduling challenges?

Request your free demo now!