testing in the food and beverage industry
across their operation. It can alert users very rapidly to an unexpected result, or a result out of tolerance, and data can be taken directly from instrumentation and passed onto enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) to ensure contaminated products don’t get shipped to customers. Dan Call, senior director of Global
Technical Sales Support at LabVantage Solutions, says that the three main elements users should consider are the technical architecture, configurability and functionality of the solution. A web-based architecture eliminates the need for laboratories to validate the use of an application on each individual computer client. This also facilitates the introduction of standard processes to multiple manufacturing and testing sites to ensure compliance – particularly valuable in validated and regulated environments. Configurable-off-the shelf features (COTS) help organisations stay compliant with global and local standards – achieved without spending resources on coding/programming
in LIMS technology, as laboratory users look for the freedom to access LIMS functionality and data anywhere within their lab,’ adds Call.
Image courtesy of Bacardi Company
under continuous time and cost pressures, whilst needing to guarantee quality and adherence to strict regulations. These result in a need for significant agility and responsiveness so that company’s strategies can be applied in an often rapidly changing environment. LabWare LIMS provides a fully integrated laboratory platform that offers full traceability and coverage of this market’s diverse requirements, such as quality control, monitoring, research and
IT’S NOT JUST A QUESTION OF INSTALLING SOFTWARE AND
LETTING IT RUN; IT’S ABOUT THE PEOPLE AND PROCESSES, AND CHANGING THE CULTURE OF THE ORGANISATION
– and out-of-the-box and critical functionality ensure quality and regulatory compliance, in addition to complete data traceability, accessibility and reporting.
More with less According to Dan Call, today’s companies want more with less: ‘The pressures of demonstrating a quick success push food and beverage companies to look for ready- to-deploy solutions that have enterprise functionality. In response to this demand, we couple LabVantage’s Quality Management LIMS solution with a guaranteed implementation to eliminate the risks associated with system implementation, thus allowing the system to be deployed much faster, easier and more reliably. ‘Our goal is to get our customer’s system
up and running quickly, while allowing the system to scale easily over the long run as their needs change and grow. From the standpoint of software functionality, organisations are looking to utilise out- of-the box functionality that encompasses industry best practices and is quickly and easily configured when requirements change, without the need for resource-consuming programming efforts.’ LabWare’s John Gabathuler agrees that food and beverage companies are
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shelf-life, as well as addressing key aspects including efficiency gains, ease of use, automation, rapid set-up and deployment, information distribution and the reduction of paperwork. ‘A flexible LIMS product which is delivered using configuration as opposed to customisation means that the overall system set-up, operation and support can be greatly simplified,’ says Gabathuler. As companies within food and beverage
take an increasingly multi-site approach to their operations, web-accessed clients are becoming a more attractive option. Colin Thurston comments that this is aiding smaller producers as it eliminates the need for them to invest in an IT infrastructure. ‘As IT heads off- premise, this software-as-a-service approach is becoming more prevalent,’ he says. According to Dan Call, another change
is that companies are using more handheld computing and portable devices in the laboratories, requiring software that provides multi-browser zero foot-print (no software to be loaded) support. ‘Similarly, support for other mobile devices has become more requested in the laboratory,’ he says. As a response, LabVantage plans to grow support for contemporary, portable internet-ready devices within its software solutions. ‘From a general industry standpoint, LIMS functionality for such devices is the next shift
JUNE/JULY 2011 9
Analysing the data One important point to note is that the deployment of software solutions within food and beverage goes beyond the lab. Michael Newkirk from SAS suggests that while software was previously reserved for those wearing lab coats, it has now surfaced – especially with the advent of business intelligence tools – to technical staff and business users. ‘If complaints are received saying that the food is too salty, for example, users can run their own ad hoc reports to identify the factory of origin and even the supplier, lot data from the supplier and production line, and equipment the product ran across. They can also run analyses from data-mining applications to identify any recognisable patterns that might emerge in complaint data that simple human reviews during regular audits cannot spot.’ Newkirk adds that as solutions are
available through portals and dashboards, software is becoming a more integral part of the food and beverage industry. ‘There are, however, an enormous amount of places that business intelligence and analytics need to penetrate, and the rate of deployment within food and beverage is less than 25 per cent at best. It’s not nearly as much as people might think,’ he says. Newkirk continues by saying that the main issue with laboratories moving away from traditional practices and towards an electronic system is that it’s not just a question of installing software and letting it run; it’s about the people and processes, and changing the culture of the organisation. He concludes by stating that while advancements have been made in recent years, there really is a long way to go before these types of software packages become commonplace. Organisations need time and expertise to create the processes, train the people and learn the technology before they can fully capitalise on analytical insights within their existing data stores.
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