Against the backdrop of rapid technological advancement, laboratories stand as critical hubs for scientific research, product quality inspection and technological innovation, carrying growing significance. As core backbones of laboratories, testing personnel’s competency directly determines laboratory operational efficiency and the accuracy of test results.

How can laboratories build competency portraits of staff to foster a professional, high-efficiency testing team?

1 Common Challenges in Industry Workforce Management

Currently, inspection and testing institutions rely heavily on managers’ personal experience and subjective judgment to manage organizational and personnel competency. This leads to multiple pain points: absence of clear standards for talent evaluation, unscientific assessment tools and methodologies, and incomplete supporting management mechanisms for talent administration. Many systems covering recruitment, training, performance appraisal, compensation incentives and promotion are hastily formulated to address emergent issues. Such circumstances make organizational competency evaluation increasingly difficult and hinder overall capacity improvement.

2 Methodology for Building Personnel Portraits in the Inspection & Testing Industry

Digital competency portraits enable multi-dimensional monitoring and analysis of testing staff’s professional capabilities and on-the-job performance, laying a more scientific foundation for talent development systems and mechanisms.

1) Data Collection and Processing

The first step to constructing digital personnel competency portraits for inspection institutions is comprehensive data collection. Data to be gathered covers institutional basic information, personnel profiles, workload records, work quality logs and special field data. All collected data undergoes normalization, including data cleansing, missing value correction, error elimination, duplicate record removal, unified formatting, dimensionality reduction and principal component extraction.

SunwayWorld leverages its data development platform to centrally collect and govern data from various laboratory systems such as OA and LIMS, forming a solid data foundation for building personnel portraits.

2) Design and Development of Portrait Labels and Indicators

Competency portraits reflect staff’s real performance through multi-dimensional labels and statistical indicators. Label design can be structured around five core dimensions: basic indicators, personnel indicators, workload indicators, work quality indicators and benefit contribution indicators.

• Basic indicators: Static attributes that reflect fixed institutional information and status with minor fluctuations;
• Personnel indicators: Illustrate institutional staffing structure and staff training status;
• Workload indicators: Cover annual throughput, total test batches, pending test volume, cumulative test quantity, per capita testing output, average test turnaround time, special inspection frequency and support activity count. They reflect institutional operational capacity from aggregate and individual workload perspectives;
• Work quality indicators: Measure staff accuracy in testing activities, record revision frequency and report rejection rates;
• Benefit indicators: Quantify revenue generated by each tester, including the number of experiments undertaken and total revenue from different test projects.

The digital platform of SunwayWorld supports data label development and indicator modeling, clarifying data implications and establishing intuitive correlations between statistical results and individual competency.

3) Generation of Personnel Competency Portraits

After establishing the label and indicator system, diversified visual charts (bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, etc.) are adopted to generate comprehensive, multi-angle personnel competency portraits, enabling intuitive competency analysis and evaluation. The portraits visualize all indicator metrics to provide robust support for institutional management and decision-making.

SunwayWorld’s digital platform embeds a native BI visual development engine and is compatible with third-party visualization tools including FineReport and Power BI. It can display label development and indicator modeling results on large-screen dashboards to realize data-driven portrait generation.

3 Applications of Personnel Competency Portraits

1) Supporting Talent Identification

Inspection and testing institutions can construct talent portrait models centered on post competency and employee career development. By analyzing testers’ knowledge reserves, professional skills and practical experience across multiple dimensions, organizations can accurately identify talents matching specific post requirements.

For instance, for special equipment inspection roles, institutions can cross-reference the specialized knowledge and skill requirements of the position with staff’s real work performance data to accurately screen candidates best suited for the job, facilitating precise talent matching.

2) In-depth Insight into Individual Competency

Personnel portraits accurately quantify proficiency in specialized skills. For pharmaceutical testing staff, portraits can be built around pharmaceutical component analysis, mastery of testing methodologies and proficiency in instrument operation.

By evaluating these specialized competencies, institutions gain clear visibility into each tester’s strengths and weaknesses across different business domains, laying a basis for rational task allocation.

3) Targeted Competency Improvement

Based on competency portraits, targeted training programs can be rolled out to address capability gaps. If a tester demonstrates insufficient knowledge and operational skills in new pharmaceutical formulation testing, the institution can launch dedicated training courses, invite industry experts to deliver lectures and provide hands-on operational guidance.

Meanwhile, personalized learning roadmaps can be customized for employees, encouraging them to strengthen weak-area capabilities via online learning platforms and academic seminars.

4) Professional Knowledge Training

Institutions can organize diverse knowledge training sessions aligned with testers’ professional demands, including academic lectures, technical workshops and online courses. Industry experts and scholars are invited to deliver lectures to broaden testers’ knowledge and industry horizons.

5) Technical Skill Training

Regular skill training sessions cover instrument operation, testing method application and data analysis. Hands-on drills and case studies are adopted to elevate testers’ technical proficiency and problem-solving capabilities.

6) Personalized Career Development Plans

Tailored development plans are formulated for each employee based on portrait evaluation results and personal career aspirations. These plans include training courses, project participation and academic exchange opportunities to help testers achieve their professional goals.

4 Future Outlook

To date, SunwayWorld has collaborated with multiple clients to deploy digital laboratory personnel portrait platforms. These platforms deliver in-depth analytical insights via portrait dashboards and dedicated analysis reports.

With continuous technological progress and rapid industry expansion, digital competency portraits for inspection and testing personnel will grow increasingly vital and hold immense development potential.

Such digital portraits carry profound practical value and broad application prospects. They will inject new momentum into the industry, point out clear development directions, and drive the inspection and testing sector toward greater intelligence, standardization and innovation.