Inventory software for sites where the data cannot leave the room.
LotWarden is offline inventory and goods-receiving software for laboratories that handle confidential supply data. It runs on a PC with no network connection, has no accounts, no cloud copy and no AI service, and refuses any outbound connection at socket level. It was built for accredited pathology laboratories, where what is on the shelf and who supplied it is not information to hand to a third party.
Most inventory software is a web service. Some sites cannot use one.
A cloud inventory system holds a copy of every delivery, supplier, lot and quantity on someone else's servers. For many businesses that is a fair trade. For a hospital laboratory behind a restricted network, a site whose IT policy forbids new cloud services, or a bench PC that has never been connected, it is not an option. The usual fallback is a spreadsheet typed by hand. LotWarden is the third choice: software that does the reading and checking, on a machine that stays offline.
Enforced by the software, not promised in a policy.
| Property | How it is enforced |
|---|---|
| No outbound connections | A network guard loads before anything else and wraps the socket layer. Only loopback, 127.0.0.1, is allowed. Every blocked attempt is written to network_audit.log with a timestamp |
| No AI and no cloud reading | Scanned delivery notes are read by a bundled OCR engine on the PC. No model calls, no upload, no telemetry, update checks or crash reporting |
| No accounts | No vendor account, no cloud sign-in and no vendor-held copy. Every receipt and sign-off records the person's initials, beside the Windows account it ran under |
| Runs only where it is authorised | A digitally signed file names the PCs approved to run it, checked without any server. On any other PC it refuses to run |
| Encrypted at rest | Logs, the register, lot history and sign-offs are encrypted on the drive and unlocked only while the application works. A lost USB stick gives up nothing |
| Tamper-evident audit trail | Every action carries the user, the time, the release and a SHA-256 chain value. Editing, inserting or deleting a record breaks the chain and the application reports it |
| Nothing installed | One folder, on local disk or an encrypted USB stick. No installer, services, scheduled tasks, registry writes or admin rights |
An IT reviewer can test every claim on this page in about ten minutes.
The acceptance checklist ships with the product. Three of its eight checks:
Watch the traffic
Run a full workload with a network monitor attached. Only loopback traffic appears.
Read the block log
Any attempted outbound connection appears in the network audit log as BLOCKED. An empty log after a full day is the evidence.
Break the chain
Edit any line of the audit log. The application reports the chain broken on the next load.
The full list: the ten-minute checklist.
What it tracks, and who it is not for.
- It is laboratory inventory. Reagents, calibrators, controls and consumables, by lot and expiry, received from scanned delivery notes into the laboratory's own Excel logs. See reagent inventory and lot tracking.
- It is not a general warehouse system. No pricing, invoicing, purchasing, multi-site transfers or point of sale.
- It is single-PC by design. There is no shared server, so it suits a receiving bench, not twenty simultaneous users.
- It needs Windows and Microsoft Excel on the PC, and nothing else.
- EQAWarden, for EQA review, runs on the same platform with the same guard, audit trail and encryption. See the two applications.
Questions about offline and confidential inventory.
Is there inventory software that works with no internet connection at all?
Yes. LotWarden was built for a PC that has never been connected to a network. It has no online mode to fall back to: only loopback connections are permitted, and any outbound attempt is refused and logged. It covers laboratory inventory, meaning reagents and consumables by lot and expiry, and not general warehouse stock.
How is offline software licensed without a server?
By a digitally signed file that names the machines approved to run it, checked on the PC without contacting anything. Machine identity is a one-way SHA-256 hash, so nothing identifying is stored or sent. A renewal notice shows from 30 days out, then there are 30 days of grace, then the application becomes read-only. A lapsed licence never locks a laboratory out of its own records.
What happens if the USB stick it runs from is lost?
The application refuses to run on any PC that has not been nominated, and its data stays encrypted. The stick gives up nothing.
Does it use AI to read delivery notes?
No. It reads scanned delivery notes with a bundled OCR engine that runs on the PC and gives the same result every time. There is no generative AI, no language model and nothing that learns from the laboratory's documents.
Can several people use it at once?
One PC runs one copy, and people use it in turn. Every receipt, sign-off and change asks for the initials of the person making it, and those initials go into the log row and the hash-chained audit trail beside the Windows account. On a bench PC with a shared login, the initials are what identify the person, as they do on a paper log.
Bring your IT reviewer to the walkthrough.
Twenty minutes on a video call. The application never opens a connection during it; only the call does.