informatics in petrochemicals


to see what needs to be done and so helps reduce the potential for errors and confusion. Te use of a LIMS also helps petrochemical companies review test results and produce certificates, which is part of the process of selecting which products go to which customers. Te LIMS tracks which vessel each product has gone into and their journey to customers. As John Gabathuler, director,


industrial and environmental at Labware notes: ‘Te need to streamline operations and optimise costs across manufacturing, supply chain and research are coupled with increased quality requirements and compliance to international standards.’


Management for all seasons Tere are other considerations in this industry that the LIMS can help with. For example, as Ross of Starlims observes, ‘In some places you are not supposed to manufacture certain products in certain seasons, for example in some southern US states there are restrictions on which months you are allowed to manufacture 87-octane gasoline because of the fumes. You need tools in your LIMS to manage this.’ And there are other seasonal


variations, as Termo Fisher Scientific’s Colin Turston, points out with the example that jet fuel has different specifications in summer and winter. He also notes the increasing need for environmental monitoring by petrochemical companies. For example, with fracking there is the requirement to test the surrounding area for contamination of ground water and soil. In addition, Turston says,


the characteristics of the products themselves can change over time so need to be monitored and the equipment used can also change. Because in-situ equipment is in a harsh environment it is prone to failure and this can impact test results. Turston notes the importance of taking samples off those instruments and measuring


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Labware’s Process Template solution provides a best-practices model for automating some of the more complex workflows within petrochemical labs


them against those done in lab. ‘Historically, process and lab


data was disconnected,’ he says. ‘However, today all instruments are directly connected into the LIMS. All testing is pre-assigned and scheduled onto the machine itself. Tere is also scheduled maintenance of the instruments.’ Controlling it all with the LIMS


helps to spot and resolve any differences. ‘Two instruments that do the same job, even from the same manufacturer, may not have same output format and no two laboratories or plants have exactly identical systems. We have to take in slight or very big differentiation,’ says Turston.


Integration and standardisation Integration between the different pieces of the informatics puzzle is a key theme for Graham Shelver, CompassCDS key account manager at Bruker Chemical and Applied Markets, which, amongst other things, makes chromatography data systems (CDS). He notes that a CDS needs to be able to interact with the production environment, the analytical lab, the management/ office environment and the IT department. It also needs to be able to network and control analytical instruments and interact with supervisory control and data acquisition systems to provide results data output in specific formats that can be interpreted and used as part of production control feedback loops. In addition,


communication with the LIMS and data storage systems is required. ‘With CDS, networking has


made a big difference. Instruments are now all networked, which means they can run from any computer. Our CDS can also control other vendor systems.’ Tis is important, he says, because, companies purchase hardware


from different vendors but typically use the same soſtware across a site. Such trends have been eased


by standardisation in computing. In the last few years there has been a convergence of soſtware, languages and protocols. ‘Tere is still a long way to go but XML made a big difference,’ Shelver says. ‘And the industry has essentially standardised on Windows, which means that the industry conforms with Windows upgrades. ‘Five or 10 years ago many


intermediate steps would have been needed but now our soſtware can very easily talk to a LIMS. Multiple different LIMS systems have to all work with all soſtware. Even with different LIMS there are common ways of communicating,’ he adds. Tere are further developments


on the horizon when it comes to computing too: ‘We regularly get requests for web interfaces, cloud interfaces, smartphone interfaces


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