In an age when speed-driven automation is displacing a large proportion of the workforce, the analytical laboratory will not be spared cutbacks. The greatest potential gains in productivity, however, may be in changing corporate culture to best use the human talent available. This article demonstrates that conditions of high sample variability or low throughput are best handled through leveraging the human resources in the industrial analytical laboratory. The analytical laboratory of the future will be even more dynamic than that of the present, requiring an environment conducive to learning. Management techniques are discussed.