Alcontrol Laboratories has recently been helping Sanctus, a provider of brownfield site testing and contracting services, to obtain accurate test results faster using the @MIS web portal.
With online scheduling and direct, real-time access to individual test results, Sanctus has increased the speed and reliability of its processes, saving up to a day per sample, while exceeding its customers' expectations and minimising costs.
The environmental business that forms part of the Sanctus Group offers a total solution package for companies developing, constructing or investigating brownfield sites.
Essential to Sanctus's success is its ability to provide services that meet its clients' development plans and timescales, while removing the risks and obstacles of developing on brownfield land in the most cost-effective way.
To achieve this, Sanctus has been working with Alcontrol for a number of years, relying on its soil- and water-testing facilities to provide accurate data as quickly as possible.
Recently, Alcontrol and Sanctus began to discuss how things could be further improved.
Alexa Gray, environmental chemist at Sanctus, said: 'We started thinking about how we could communicate more efficiently to allow us to obtain test results more quickly, reduce the risk of human error and cut our costs.
'Alcontrol suggested we trial its @MIS online portal, so we set about integrating it into our procedures,' she added.
During its research, Alcontrol found that its clients spent a considerable amount of time completing and submitting chain-of-custody documentation and calling the laboratory for the status of tests.
Additionally, the manual nature of these processes introduced the risk of human error at numerous stages and took up valuable resources.
To address these issues, Alcontrol created a method for its clients to enter chain-of-custody information directly into the system and access results from each part of the testing process as soon as they were completed.
Users would be able to produce detailed final reports and hold them in an accessible archive for increased traceability and analysis.
As soon as Sanctus started using the @MIS system, it began to notice improvements.
Gray said: 'Both with submitting test requests and obtaining results, things are much easier and faster.
'By inputting the chain-of-custody information directly on screen, rather than having to fill out and submit a handwritten form, we can be sure that Alcontrol will receive the right information instantly.
'This frees us up to get on with other tasks that we wouldn't normally have had the time to do.
'The reporting functionality is even more useful.
'Previously, we had to wait for an entire set of tests to be completed before we could pass on the information to our client.
'This delay meant that, in some cases, development on a site would come to a standstill, costing our customers a lot of money.
'With @MIS, we can now access each test result as it is completed.
'Often, one single result can tell us what we need to know; for example, if we get a really high hydrocarbon reading, we know the soil is hazardous and further results are unnecessary, letting us meet our customers' requirements much faster, help them stay on schedule and keep costs down,' she added.
