IMPLEMENTATION | LABORATORY INFORMATICS GUIDE 2015 Jennifer Lake, Post Foods For Fisher, the key benefits of this LIMS


include productivity, traceability, ease of access to data, as well as key performance indicator monitoring. ‘Auditors come onto our site and are blown


away by how much we use this LIMS, and how transparent our operations are as a consequence,’ he said. Since implementation, Fisher said, his


team has been able to respond more quickly to customer demands, particularly with the provision of automated data transfers and bespoke reporting options. ‘There are always additional or different


customer requirements,’ he concluded. ‘So I would say the LIMS system is still being implemented and always will be.’


P


ost Foods is North America’s third largest cereal manufacturer, and as such, faces


strict Food & Drug Administration regulation regarding the product formulation. Each product, whether devised within a single-laboratory or manufactured across several national plants, must be represented accurately, which of course demands a very flexible system. As Jennifer Lake, research scientist


and analytical lab manager at Post Foods, points out, analytical verification has always taken place throughout the research and development process, but data had been stored in an outdated Access database that no longer provided a reliable tracking system. With this in mind, her team turned


to Core LIMS, from US-based Core Informatics, to replace the aged analytical database. ‘We’re a relatively small laboratory


with thirty researchers developing cereal, and turnaround about 1,000 samples a month,’ she explained. ‘We do a lot of sugar testing, vitamin testing, as well as fibre, protein, and fat, and also test for


Crucially, the stability module has


streamlined reporting, standardising chart formats and slashing the time spent on data entry and manual charting


antioxidants that we put into the cereal to retain freshness.’ As Lake explained, her team uses


Core LIMS as a data repository for Post’s analytical system covering every brand and product, past and present, as well as its formula and analytical testing requirements. During the move from the original


Access database to Core LIMS, the company converted more than one million lines of archived data into a format that can now be easily tracked, searched and retrieved. And critically some 15 years of archived data were transferred during this process. A key part of the implementation process was also to create a so-called


Post Foods uses CoreLIMS as a data repository for its analytical system


‘Shelf Life Stability Module’ within the LIMS. According to Lake, package stability and lifetime form a critical part of Post’s research, with many samples being stored under various conditions to emulate different storage, as well as shipping and handling conditions. ‘The systems within Core LIMS can


actually track all of our samples across all the different conditions as we take sensory and analytical measurements throughout a product’s shelf life to ensure it is “shelf-stable”,’ she said. ‘Before, we were tracking everything on


paper and Excel spreadsheets, this was extremely manual,’ she added. ‘But only months after [system implementation] we can see samples flow through the system and we see exactly how it’s working.’ Crucially, the stability module has


streamlined reporting, standardising chart formats and slashing the time spent on data entry and manual charting. ‘For an average 12-month study, there


must be around 3,000 measurements entered,’ highlighted Lake. ‘Not having to manually enter these values saves us about 50 per cent of our time, in each study.’ Right now, Lake is working with Core


Informatics on the final modifications to the stability module and then intends to focus on an inventory tracking system. For her, implementation so far has taken a lot of time, and as she highlights: ‘I’m pretty much a solo act here at Post, so having a larger team would have really helped to break up this work.’ But, as she added: ‘Core Informatics


has really taken the concept of what we are doing, and put that into their system in a way that is easy to use and easy to follow. It’s a very complex process and we’ve been able to simplify this.’


www.scientific-computing.com/lig2015 | 17


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36