A matter of record At a site in Geneva, Switzerland, the testing done by Barcardi Company revolves around botanicals, extracts and fl avours. ‘The main challenge for us is the move to a paperless environment,’ says Eduardo Granado, spokesman for the Bacardi Company. ‘We try to do as much reporting as possible in an electronic format, but it’s not always easy within the laboratory as it is quite usual for the technicians to use paper. We also want to reinforce the role of barcodes as they help manage every sample that passes through, regardless of sequence. Barcodes play a big part in providing traceability and, at any moment within the process, we need to be able to trace a sample quickly.’ He continues by saying that in terms of legal requirements the key word is ‘traceability’. Companies such as Bacardi need to be
able to trace every step within a process and perform a test on each of those steps. As laboratories are managing an increasing number of samples every year, effi ciency is a growing concern. This is where the functionality of informatics software can help. ‘The LIMS is able to record when a sample arrives at the lab and is validated, so every step can be calculated within a monthly report, giving an indication of where time is being spent and where the process can be improved.
IT IS UNIQUE IN THE SENSE
THAT A LARGE PROPORTION OF THE PROCESS CONSISTS OF FAIRLY SUBJECTIVE MEASURES THAT HAVE TO BE QUANTIFIED
As we are dealing with natural ingredients, we can also have issues with batches expiring and so we need to be focused on quality and have a fl exible system in place,’ says Granado. Colin Thurston adds: ‘Food safety is,
of course, the primary concern, however for a lot of multinational companies the implementation of a LIMS is also about brand protection. Companies like Heineken,
LIMS solutions are becoming more prevalent within food and drink testing laboratories (Image courtesy of LabVantage)
for example, don’t want to be associated with a food scare, so it’s important that they have a very robust system in place.’ Testing for contaminants, pathogens
and bacteria is an easily quantifi able and somewhat straightforward process, but the broader issues of quality that exist within the food and beverage industry are far more complex. Michael Newkirk, group manager, Manufacturing and Supply Chain at SAS, explains: ‘It is unique in the sense that a large proportion of the process consists of fairly subjective measures that have to be quantifi ed. Testers, for example, attempt to do things in as scientifi c a way as possible, and try to keep the taxonomy tight and carefully defi ned. ‘Part of the many data
feeds, carefully controlled testing data is entered as numbers on a scale – for instance, the level of saltiness on a scale of one to 10. That is added as structured data. In terms of unstructured data, there are customer comments from call centres or focus groups to consider and take into account. Adding these as data is a more complex task as manufacturers need to have a rigorous taxonomic analysis and clear content categorisation.’
Image courtesy of Bacardi Company 8 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD
Make the link Within laboratories, a consistent plan of maintenance and calibration is needed
as regulations require maintenance of equipment as well as technical documentation. The LIMS can routinely manage that schedule and if a piece of equipment needs to be examined on a regular basis to ensure it is within a calibration percentage, that timetable is managed as an automated process. ‘Having interfaces between the LIMS and SAP is also important as it means we don’t need to have a technician rewriting all the sample characteristics,’ says Eduardo Granado, who also comments that linking the LIMS to lab equipment enables them to work on instruments overnight. With no shortage of
informatics vendors, choosing a solution involves a careful examination of individual requirements, but one of the key criteria
for any business in this market must be that it is able to support all the possible
result types. ‘Some results may come from microbiological slides,
in which case companies may need to store
images, while instrumentation will provide numerical results. Certain producers may also want to store a descriptive result, such as a scale of the clarity of beer,’ says Thurston. LIMS solutions, such as the Thermo Scientifi c Nautilus used by Bacardi Company, support the entire process from the arrival of raw ingredients to the packaging of fi nished product by enabling food producers to build a testing protocol and monitor the results
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