How Visibility Turned a Quiet Facility into One of the Most Active Booking Hubs in Two Weeks

When the GCI Shared Facility first came to us, they didn't think they had a usage problem. They thought they had a booking problem. Their equipment was valuable and the researchers were there; demand should have existed. But in practice, bookings were inconsistent, staff were firefighting conflicts, and researchers didn't trust the system. Equipment sat idle more often than it should have, not because it wasn't needed, but because accessing it felt painful.

GCI Shared Facility was using a general-purpose booking tool that technically worked… most of the time. Over time, small issues added up:

• Double bookings created tension between researchers
• Bugs made availability unreliable
• Booking something required too many steps, especially on mobile
• Equipment status lived in people's heads or inboxes, not in the system

Researchers stopped checking; admins spent time resolving conflicts instead of supporting research. When people don't trust what they're seeing, they stop looking.

Instead of a "feature replacement" project, we focused on one idea: if resources are visible, searchable, and easy to book, they will get used. Everything we built answered three questions instantly: What's available? When can I use it? Can I book it right now without friction?

Researchers could see availability at a glance; conflicts couldn't happen anymore; admins had a system that enforced rules automatically. Access was controlled tightly to GCI Shared Facility's authorized labs, so visibility didn't come at the cost of security.

We onboarded GCI Shared Facility onto LabGiant over two weeks. We expected a gradual ramp. That's not what happened. Within days, researchers started discovering equipment they didn't know existed; mobile bookings jumped; admin intervention dropped sharply.

By the end of those two weeks, 200+ researchers had onboarded and booked equipment. The real inflection came after the switch: by month three on LabGiant, booking hours at this one facility were running about 5× the pre-LabGiant baseline. The system didn't create new equipment; it revealed what was already there and removed every excuse not to use it.

This case reinforced something we see over and over: most research equipment isn't underutilized because it lacks value. It's underutilized because it's invisible, confusing, or risky to book. When researchers can trust availability, see who's using what, book in seconds, and get notified when things change, they act. And when they act, utilization follows naturally.

For GCI Shared Facility, the impact wasn't just higher booking numbers. It meant less admin overhead, fewer conflicts between labs, better justification for existing infrastructure, and a clearer picture of how resources are actually used. Visibility didn't just unlock usage. It restored confidence in the system.