A Quality Management System for scientific research activities and its related management software

Quality disciplines have been widely used for decades in industrial and business fields. It is only in recent times, however, that Quality management and approaches have received proper attention in life science. The development, optimization, validation and dissemination of an innovative way of planning and organizing research activity, inspired by Quality and Project Management principles, is the aim of the present work. Hence, we have generated a Quality Management System for a pilot life science research laboratory that deals with the housing and handling of marine organisms. Based on our Quality system, we have also created the modular software prototype Help4Lab. We could demonstrate that a proper and accurate transfer of Quality culture and methodologies to intellectual and scientific production can facilitate and strengthen scientific research.