DESKTOP MODELING AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR BUDGETING, FORECASTING, AND REPORTING IN AN ANALYTICAL LABORATORY

Managers are often required to quickly and accurately estimate resource needs. At times, additional work can be absorbed without additional resources. At other times, threshold resource boundaries are exceeded requiring an additional quantum of a specific resource. Cost savings' estimates, resulting from a reduction in efforts, are also increasingly becoming a requirement of today's managers. Simulation or modeling efforts can quickly and accurately assist the manager in the estimate of these resources. These can span the scale from large complicated efforts such as those used by NASA or the National Weather Bureau to small and concise efforts easily accomplished with the desktop tools readily available today. The modeling effort described in this paper was designed to estimate instrumentation and manpower resource needs for an analytical laboratory. It was written using only simple spreadsheet software. Analysis can be readily performed with a minimum of input and results obtained in a matter of minutes. This model has been tuned with many years of empirical data yielding a high degree of capability. The model was expanded to meet other needs. It can be used to justify capital expenditure when the ultimate result is cost savings; to examine procedures and operations for efficiency increases; and for reporting and regulatory compliance. This paper demonstrates that accurate and credible estimates of resource needs can be readily obtained with a minimum of effort or specialized knowledge employing only tools that are readily available in today's business environment.