testing and analytical labs THERE IS CONCERN


THAT REPORTS ALONE CANNOT EXPLAIN THE LOGIC BEHIND AN ANALYST’S DECISION


LIMS that includes comprehensive business management functionality. ‘People take the term “LIMS” and


restrict their thinking purely to laboratory information management, rather than business management,’ he comments, ‘and I think that depends on who is driving the project. A lab manager within a contract lab may oſten have a different view of requirements to that of the MD, for example.’ He goes on to say that how the informatics solution is viewed can oſten be dictated by the expectations of the project, and that in turn is very much dependent upon the size of the contract lab in question.


Aiding compliance Te functionality that LIMS provide has changed greatly over the years and while the need for a total solution is universal throughout lab environments, testing and analytical facilites add further layers of complexity given the nature of their work. In recent years, explains Keith Huxford, marketing/project implementation manager at CSols, the requirements for traceability and auditing of the analytical testing of samples have increased. ‘In particular this has affected how testing is done in the water and environmental laboratories in commercial or government organisations,’


Case study


Steve Fisher, general manager at Sciantec Analytical Services, discusses the use of informatics


Along with pricing, the most relevant key considerations when offering analytical services to companies are quality and service. Hence, a LIMS must be able to allow us to offer the best possible solutions across the complete range of services that we offer. We would look for aspects such as the ability for our customers to import data into the system, for example to streamline sample login and test assignment, and fast and reliable instrument drivers to enable data to be transferred quickly while minimising transcription errors. Our current version of Labware has allowed us to implement functions and facilities that until recently would have been great to have, but not possible in other systems (we used to run a different manufacturer’s LIMS). LIMS has become


he says, adding that laboratories of this type are performing a very wide range of analytical techniques for inorganic, organic and physical determinants at medium- to high-throughput sample capacity. ‘Because of this,’ Huxford continues,


‘they need to be able to produce quality results quickly, economically and increasingly more competitively, with consistent turnaround times and meet the requirements of accreditation bodies such as the DWI and UKAS.’ Ensuring that data is conveyed quickly and accurately to external sources is critical,


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more flexible and everything we have looked to implement has been possible. More recent developments centred around productivity review have been very useful to the business and have helped us to improve the service we offer our customers even further. One specific aspect we have noticed is that the system runs a lot quicker than our old LIMS which is all important. We’d imagine, as with our business, there is much functionality being put into LIMS by on- site Administrators and Developers that would be of use to other businesses. Our vendor provided a pre-configuration called the Contract Lab Template which has made good inroads into capturing this functionality. This not only provides a more comprehensive starting point but can also help to reduce the cost of LIMS ownership. In addition to this, it would be good to see a way of publishing data on a web portal. We’re developing this ourselves in-house through a third party.


but this ‘communication’ can bring its own set of problems. Torp explains that while a LIMS system can facilitate the delivery of reports, analytical people oſten express huge concerns that reports alone cannot explain the logic behind an analyst’s decision. Should a situation arise where there is a need to double check the results, or if the analyst discovers that an error has been made somewhere along the line, there is oſten no recourse but to redo the work – a costly and time-consuming prospect. ‘A possible solution,’ offers Torp, ‘is for the contract analytical lab to provide


FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 7


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