Life Science
by Silke Holzmüller-Laue, Bernd Göde, and Kerstin Thurow
LIMS-BPMS Coupling: A Novel Approach for Flexible End-to-End Workflow Automation in Life Science Laboratories, Part 1
G
eneralized life science automation (LSA) includes all application areas of laboratory automation, i.e., health care, pharmaceutical development, chemistry, and biology. The connection of all dependent activities and subprocesses, which influence results and process quality, leads to complex end-to-end processes. The complexity is derived, for example, from dependencies be- tween resulting analytical data and potentially possible changes (production, transport, stor- age, and application). The complex workflows of the R&D processes often have relatively short life cycles. For economic reasons, these processes are not always desirable in regard to overall process automation and systems integration. However, there is considerable pressure for closed-loop process control, espe- cially in the case of complex experiments with high material dependencies.
This article describes a new approach to workflow automation based on a standardized graphical process notation. Business process management (BPM)-based workflow control for life science automation controls fully au- tomated subprocesses, semiautomated, and manual activities using one process model. Improving the automation does not mean that the processes are performed fully automati- cally by machines. The approach focuses on comprehensive IT support for process control including human tasks. The objectives of auto- mation for subprocesses can follow economic criteria, e.g., the fast and reproducible execu- tion of several high-throughput applications.
The documentation that accompanies the process is very important in the application domain. On the one hand, various regulatory bodies (i.e., GLP and FDA) require complete documentation to meet the obligation of proof. On the other hand, systematic research and development benefits from accurate pro- cess records and archives. The support and control of documentation tasks are part of the workflow development.
This article focuses on the synergy of process- driven applications carried out by business process management systems (BPMS) and generic process documentation platforms using the example of a laboratory information management system (LIMS).
Advanced BPM for life science automation
Standardized global process control Business process model and notation (BPMN) is an established standardized graphical notation for process modeling and automa- tion. The objective is to connect the different perspectives of business and domain experts, automation experts, and IT departments.1–3
A
BPMN model in the current version 2.0 (pub- lished in 2011) can be directly executed by a BPMN engine without translating the business model into other languages for execution and systems integration (e.g., BPEL).
Figure 1 – Representative architecture for the workflow automation in life science laboratories. AMERICAN LABORATORY • 26 • MAY 2014
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