informatics in petrochemicals
and virtualisation, and each one of these is in our business plan,’ comments Shelver. However, some of these, which are well
established in other areas of computing, have had surprisingly low adoption in laboratory informatics. ‘Slow adoption of web interfaces in this industry is really because of security. Large organisations are reluctant to put access to analytical data on the web, especially pharmaceutical companies. In the petrochemical industry, things have also been slowed down because the industry is
IN THE PAST, MANY
MULTI-SITE COMPANIES WERE HAPPY TO CHOOSE THEIR LIMS ON A REFINERY-BY- REFINERY BASIS
about 10 years behind on IT technology. It’s a conservative industry; they don’t like spending money,’ says Shelver, who adds that Bruker will be offering a web option but customers do not have to take it. Similar issues cloud the promise of cloud
computing. ‘Te problem with the cloud is convincing users to allow us to put their data on third-party servers. Customers want to store data but also to process it and make it secure,’ he explains, predicting that cloud computing
A LIMS in action
David Breach, laboratory manager at Intertek Farnborough, Fuels and Lubricants Centre, UK, reveals what his lab demands of its LIMS
Intertek Farnborough is an independent service provider providing fuels and lubricants testing and consultancy for commercial and military operators. Our laboratories test a wide range of products, such as aviation jet fuel, oils, lubricants, greases and hydraulic fluids. We perform a large number of different test methods.
This means that one of our biggest challenges is the very diverse range of requirements placed on our LIMS, from simple numerical results through to complex calculations, storage of spectra and image files. A flexible and configurable LIMS has always been a key requirement for our business, since this allows us to meet the needs of our customers while minimising the effort required for system configuration. One of our key requirements [of our LIMS] is the ability to provide trended results for our
8 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD
customers, by comparing the current results against those for previous samples that we have tested. This allows us to make judgements on the health of their systems and give customers guidance on maintenance actions that they might need to take. Our LIMS is used for all aspects of this process – trending the data, highlighting unusually-high results, assigning comments based on the values observed, and giving the customer a simple ‘traffic light’ warning system for the health of their samples. Our laboratories are ISO/IEC 17025:2005
accredited, with LIMS playing an important part in ensuring that we can meet the required quality standards. Calibration information and check samples are recorded on LIMS, with this data also being used to demonstrate the long-term stability of our instruments. Instruments that fail calibration can be easily identified. We make use of result calculations within LIMS
wherever possible, minimising the use of stand- alone spreadsheets and other uncontrolled data so that we can ensure the integrity of our results. As
a fully auditable system, our LIMS ensures that we can quickly and easily demonstrate who has been involved in any aspect of the sample testing, which is a key requirement of our quality system. We use the Labware Labstation module
to directly import raw data files from several instruments in our laboratory. This has considerably increased productivity and reduced transcription errors compared to manual entry methods. We also perform error checking and automatically log calibration samples, which assists significantly in ensuring the quality of data is maintained. Our current integration is mainly with ICP instruments, but we will be expanding this to GC and FT-IR data shortly. We are increasingly seeing a movement
towards customers needing direct access to their data so that they can look up results or pick data to trend themselves. Therefore in the future we will move towards having a publically accessible WebLIMS front end to our system, which will allow customers to generate their own trending information.
www.scientific-computing.com
will be most beneficial to smaller labs. But there are other challenges with the cloud too. It requires a monthly fee – although this removes the overhead from companies of having to worry about their IT. Shelver notes that many LIMS vendors are
using the cloud already or planning to. ‘LIMS with cloud is easier than analytical system with cloud. LIMS is essentially instructions and is relatively simple.’ But, he says that CDS are more complicated
because of the need to control instruments 24/7 and keep analysing results. ‘We can’t afford for the cloud to go down. We need to make sure that the control of the system doesn’t break. Te industry requires and demands 99.999999 per cent up time.’
Centralising informatics Cloud computing is one aspect that is emerging as businesses move towards more centralised informatics systems. ‘Te industry is really pushing towards more centralised solutions,’ says Ross of Starlims, who notes that the information that users see within Starlims is controlled by their role. ‘An analyst sees the things they work on, while a senior manager can see the performance overview of perhaps five sites. Te system is geared towards filtering information,’ he says. ‘Te petrochemical and refinery industry is very, very efficient. Having individual LIMS deployed at each site is labour intensive and adds overheads.
‘In the past, many multi-site companies were
happy to choose their LIMS on a refinery-by- refinery basis. Now we are seeing consolidation to standardise across companies. Tis brings efficiency, which is a key performance indicator,’ Ross adds. ‘Another aspect of this is an increase in statistical process control. In the refining industry it is about competitive advantage. If you can identify problems sooner you can reduce errors and save money.’ John Gabathuler of Labware agrees:
‘Te centralisation and consolidation of informatics systems is a continuing trend that provides many benefits to the petrochemical organisation in both manufacturing and research. Labware provides an enterprise laboratory platform that enables the adoption of a single integrated and scalable LIMS, ELN and instrument integration platform that facilitates the overall harmonisation and consolidation of common processes, information delivery and systems.’ However, there can be some downsides
of centralising LIMS, according to Baytek International. Te company notes that the process of moving to the same LIMS across a whole company can be more expensive than expected, pointing to the ‘unique personality’ of each refinery, as well as differences caused by factors such as crude source, geography, regional regulation and plant engineering. ‘If a completely centralised LIMS is forced down on all the refineries, a continual and
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