5 ms·

Quartzy Collects $4M To Help Scientists Manage Lab Inventory

69 points by jayzee 13y ago

prayag 13y ago
HNers tend to talk about good companies solving real problems and this seems like a very real, important (albeit admittedly unsexy) problem to me. Kudos for trying to tackle this problem.
- jareau 13y ago
  Love unsexy problems! Congrats to Jayant et al.
crapshoot101 13y ago
Congrats Jayant - excited!
mayop100 13y ago
Congrats Jayant! This is huge!
Osmium 13y ago
Hmm, interesting. I have a lot of samples to organise and keep track of, so I started using a couchdb database to do so, but (simple though it is) it takes time I'd rather not spend. That said, it seems like a difficult problem to solve for the general case. So I'll keep an eye on this with interest.
- jayzee 13y ago
  If you have a lot of samples you might find our interactive freezer boxes useful: http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/interactive-freezer-box-maps-on-quartzy http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/interactive-f... http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/managing-locations-on-quartzy http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/managing-loca...
  - Osmium 13y ago
    This is actually really cool. I don't use freezer boxes at all, but a map system like that would work equally well for, say, keeping track of what's in TEM grid holders[1] which I do use. This is what I meant when I said in my original comment that I think this problem is a difficult one, because so many different scientists are using so many different types of inventory. But I'm sure it's possible, and I wish you luck :) [1] e.g. http://scienceservices.eu/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1600x/0d0c09f1c8bdb43b879ca3fe7208b7e2/g/7/g71137_0_dsc_0748_1.jpg http://scienceservices.eu/media/catalog/product/cache/1/imag...
    - jayzee 13y ago
      That link is super helpful! We started out with the most common layouts and are now adding more based on feedback. Thanks!!
frisco 13y ago
Congratulations Jayant and Adam!
rch 13y ago
I suggested this to my lab when I was at M.D. Anderson, and they were in the process of migrating when I moved last summer. I should check back to see if they stuck with it.
cm2012 13y ago
Does the company offer a physical solution to the labs, like RFID tags or something? Or is it all software?
- jayzee 13y ago
  For now it is all software but we are moving towards offering barcode scanners integrated with the inventory, RFID tags etc...
  - aroch 13y ago
    We use Quartzy at the moment but its just so clunky, especially ordering and facility scheduling. I [used to] work in a facility that almost exclusively provides user services (for 200-300 researchers and students) and scheduling of all our equipment is rather important. I've spoken with you guys in the past about this, and while you say there are plans to do things like weekly interactive calendars (instead of that silly printable one), programmatic addition or even an API (I've wound up scraping and using some of your private calls to build our own calendar app for quatzy)...it has yet to happen. I can only hope that you'll invest a good portion of this on the UX / software integration side. Also, your ordering catalog search sucks, a lot. It doesn't find 90+% of the Hampton products we try to order.
haldujai 13y ago
This seems like a really promising idea, and the execution is excellent. My only concern (as a scientist) would be whether people would continue to use it. Researchers aren't known for being organised at all, and the system of 'if what you're using is about to run out leave a sticky note on the lab manager's bench with the product #' seems to work. In terms of freezer boxes, my lab used to have a web based system once upon a time ago but people would forget to update it after they took out the samples so we switched to a binder tied to the freezer, that worked a lot better with pages of grids. I personally like this but I feel as though it might be one of those products that is attractive while its still new but people will become lazy and stop using it. It's easy to forget to update something on the computer when you're busy doing long experiments. Do you collect usage stats? It would be interesting to see how usage varies from a single research group over time and whether or not this decline happens. Afterthought Edit: I can see how large groups ( > 25 grad students / post-docs) might be forced into using a computer based solution for scheduling and ordering as it's not feasible to use that much paper but is there really an advantage for small groups (3-8 members) which comprise the majority of research groups? To me this is like using Sharepoint to manage documents for a group consisting of two people, a dropbox or email would be just as effective.
- skosuri 13y ago
  A few grad students and I started something quite some time ago out of MIT called OpenWetWare.Org that was meant to help organize things like this and included calenders, lab notebooks, stocks, lab webpages, simple sample tracking, et cetera using a wiki (when they were all the rage :-). When we had buy in from the whole lab it's awesome, but as you mention, over a couple of years, much of that initial enthusiasm faded. In looking at which worked, and which didn't, it really comes down to how much the PI of the lab cares about this stuff; if s/he uses, appreciates, and instills it into lab practice, some of those groups have continued to use it to this day with really in-depth information. In most others, it tends to fade because it is not a priority and is usually seen as a waste of time by the PI. I'm about to start a lab (at UCLA), I'm trying to figure out how best to begin making such a culture... but it is an interesting problem that does need a solution.
  - 13y ago
3327 13y ago
Great HN is turning into techcrunch

69 points by jayzee 13y ago

HNers tend to talk about good companies solving real problems and this seems like a very real, important (albeit admittedly unsexy) problem to me. Kudos for trying to tackle this problem.

jareau 13y ago
Love unsexy problems! Congrats to Jayant et al.

crapshoot101 13y ago

Congrats Jayant - excited!

mayop100 13y ago

Congrats Jayant! This is huge!

Osmium 13y ago

Hmm, interesting. I have a lot of samples to organise and keep track of, so I started using a couchdb database to do so, but (simple though it is) it takes time I'd rather not spend. That said, it seems like a difficult problem to solve for the general case. So I'll keep an eye on this with interest.

jayzee 13y ago
If you have a lot of samples you might find our interactive freezer boxes useful: http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/interactive-freezer-box-maps-on-quartzy http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/interactive-f... http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/managing-locations-on-quartzy http://support.quartzy.com/kb/inventory-module/managing-loca...
- Osmium 13y ago
  This is actually really cool. I don't use freezer boxes at all, but a map system like that would work equally well for, say, keeping track of what's in TEM grid holders[1] which I do use. This is what I meant when I said in my original comment that I think this problem is a difficult one, because so many different scientists are using so many different types of inventory. But I'm sure it's possible, and I wish you luck :) [1] e.g. http://scienceservices.eu/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1600x/0d0c09f1c8bdb43b879ca3fe7208b7e2/g/7/g71137_0_dsc_0748_1.jpg http://scienceservices.eu/media/catalog/product/cache/1/imag...
  - jayzee 13y ago
    That link is super helpful! We started out with the most common layouts and are now adding more based on feedback. Thanks!!

frisco 13y ago

Congratulations Jayant and Adam!

rch 13y ago

I suggested this to my lab when I was at M.D. Anderson, and they were in the process of migrating when I moved last summer. I should check back to see if they stuck with it.

cm2012 13y ago

Does the company offer a physical solution to the labs, like RFID tags or something? Or is it all software?

jayzee 13y ago
For now it is all software but we are moving towards offering barcode scanners integrated with the inventory, RFID tags etc...
- aroch 13y ago
  We use Quartzy at the moment but its just so clunky, especially ordering and facility scheduling. I [used to] work in a facility that almost exclusively provides user services (for 200-300 researchers and students) and scheduling of all our equipment is rather important. I've spoken with you guys in the past about this, and while you say there are plans to do things like weekly interactive calendars (instead of that silly printable one), programmatic addition or even an API (I've wound up scraping and using some of your private calls to build our own calendar app for quatzy)...it has yet to happen. I can only hope that you'll invest a good portion of this on the UX / software integration side. Also, your ordering catalog search sucks, a lot. It doesn't find 90+% of the Hampton products we try to order.

haldujai 13y ago

This seems like a really promising idea, and the execution is excellent. My only concern (as a scientist) would be whether people would continue to use it. Researchers aren't known for being organised at all, and the system of 'if what you're using is about to run out leave a sticky note on the lab manager's bench with the product #' seems to work. In terms of freezer boxes, my lab used to have a web based system once upon a time ago but people would forget to update it after they took out the samples so we switched to a binder tied to the freezer, that worked a lot better with pages of grids. I personally like this but I feel as though it might be one of those products that is attractive while its still new but people will become lazy and stop using it. It's easy to forget to update something on the computer when you're busy doing long experiments. Do you collect usage stats? It would be interesting to see how usage varies from a single research group over time and whether or not this decline happens. Afterthought Edit: I can see how large groups ( > 25 grad students / post-docs) might be forced into using a computer based solution for scheduling and ordering as it's not feasible to use that much paper but is there really an advantage for small groups (3-8 members) which comprise the majority of research groups? To me this is like using Sharepoint to manage documents for a group consisting of two people, a dropbox or email would be just as effective.

skosuri 13y ago
A few grad students and I started something quite some time ago out of MIT called OpenWetWare.Org that was meant to help organize things like this and included calenders, lab notebooks, stocks, lab webpages, simple sample tracking, et cetera using a wiki (when they were all the rage :-). When we had buy in from the whole lab it's awesome, but as you mention, over a couple of years, much of that initial enthusiasm faded. In looking at which worked, and which didn't, it really comes down to how much the PI of the lab cares about this stuff; if s/he uses, appreciates, and instills it into lab practice, some of those groups have continued to use it to this day with really in-depth information. In most others, it tends to fade because it is not a priority and is usually seen as a waste of time by the PI. I'm about to start a lab (at UCLA), I'm trying to figure out how best to begin making such a culture... but it is an interesting problem that does need a solution.
- 13y ago

3327 13y ago

Great HN is turning into techcrunch