Database Technology
Inventory Manager is a ChemOffice WebServer based application designed to manage the reagent tracking needs of chemical and pharmaceutical research centers. The system manages data associated with both commercially and internally produced chemical substances. Although Inventory Manager is a stand-alone application, it can be tightly integrated with CambridgeSoft’s Registration System and chemical procurement ChemACX Database. Inventory Manager is designed for a range of sizes from large workgroups to enterprises, and captures both stockroom and reagent needs as well as high-throughput discovery.

• Integrated with Registration System and ChemACX for procurement and life cycle chemical tracking.
• Cascading location model allows different labs to track reagents at different levels (stockroom, refrigerators)
• Designed for tracking reagents, high-throughput discovery libraries, and true HTS plate management at multiple levels

Cascading Location Model
Inventory Manager has a fully cascading location model. This means that laboratories can decide for themselves the granularity of their locations. Some labs may define locations as wells on plates residing on shelves inside refrigerators, which, in turn, are found in laboratories. Another lab may decide to track reagents at the bench or cabinet level. Still, in other settings, it may suffice to track chemicals on a lab-by-lab basis. The moving of chemical inventories is greatly helped by this model. For example, if an entire refrigerator is relocated, all of its containers move along with it. There is no need to re-catalog or reconcile, which saves a great deal of time.

Discovery, Reagents & Stockroom
Inventory Manager integrates fully with CambridgeSoft’s ChemACX Database of available chemicals and Registration System. It also functions completely as a stand-alone application. Through this architecture, CambridgeSoft’s enterprise solutions are truly plug-and-play. There are no added system integration costs, and the applications can live on different servers in different parts of the world.

Flexibility
The flexibility of the location model allows Inventory Manager to accommodate both reagent and discovery inventories in the same system. Each container in the system can be configured to track quantities in increasingly small values. A reagent bottle, for instance, can be measured as “full” or “empty”, while wells in a 96-well plate can be measured in microliters. By moving such settings and preferences down to the container level, rather than system-wide or custom programming, Inventory Manager can accommodate both worlds in a single instance.

Integration with Purchasing & Registration
Inventory records are created directly from ChemACX Database of available chemicals, as well as from Registration System. For substances that do not exist in either database, Inventory Manager has its own chemically aware user interface. By tightly coupling with ChemACX Database and Registration System, the need for duplicate data entry is virtually eliminated. Once a product is ordered, its chemical information is stored and it is given an “on order” status, reducing duplicate ordering of popular reagents.