The Paperwork That Travels With the Box

Part of Clinical Laboratory (LAB) Training: Dangerous Goods and Documentation.

About 2 minutes. Free, in your language, no account needed.

The documents are part of the shipment

A perfectly packed box with wrong paperwork does not move. Or it moves and cannot be reconciled at the other end.

What normally travels

The manifest or packing list. What is in the box, by identifier, with counts.

The airway bill or consignment note. The courier's record of the journey.

The dangerous goods documentation, where required for the classification.

The temperature logger identifier, so the trace can be matched to the shipment.

The manifest must match the box

Count what you packed and reconcile it against what you wrote, before you seal it.

A manifest listing forty samples against a box holding thirty-nine starts an investigation at the receiving laboratory. Almost always it is a manifest error, and it still costs everyone a day.

Identifiers, not names

The manifest carries study identifiers. It should not carry participant names.

A manifest is handled by couriers and customs. Personal data on it is a confidentiality breach as well as a protocol issue.

International shipments need more

Customs documentation, and often an import permit or a statement that the material has no commercial value.

These vary by country and change. Confirm current requirements rather than reusing last year's paperwork.

A shipment held at customs is a shipment at an uncontrolled temperature.

Keep your copy

The site file should hold a copy of everything that traveled, plus the proof of dispatch and, later, the confirmation of receipt.

The confirmation is the part most often missing. Without it the record shows a shipment sent and never accounted for.

Close the loop

Chase a shipment that has not been confirmed received. Chase it in days, not weeks.

An unconfirmed shipment is either delivered and unrecorded, or lost. You cannot tell which without asking, and only one of those is recoverable.