INFORMATICS IN ACTION


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utterworth Laboratories is a fully independent UK provider of contract analytical services. It offers


method development, method validation, stability testing, and QC testing services to the pharmaceutical, medical device and chemical industries, including analysis of raw materials, active ingredients, and finished products. The laboratory is ISO 17025 (2005)-accredited, and GLP/GMP compliant, with specialisation in chromatography, wet and general chemistry, metals analysis, physicochemical testing, and elemental microanalyses. Butterworth installed Autoscribe’s Matrix Gemini LIMS platform in 2007,


From contact testing laboratories to multinational companies, informatics systems have an important role to play. Sophia Ktori spoke to some of the users


David Hawkins, CEO at Butterworth Laboratories


following a review of its existing information management system, which was largely paper-based and inefficient, explains David Hawkins, chief operating officer and head of quality assurance and IT. ‘We realised back in 2006 that we needed a LIMS platform that would operate as a process management system. Required functions included overseeing the input, storage, retrieval,


We realised back in 2006 that we needed a LIMS platform


that would operate as a process management system


management and sharing of data, including client requests and quotes, along with sample receipt and tracking, the allocation of test specifications and requirements to our team of analysts, the management of laboratory and analytical data, results reporting to clients, and invoicing. Information from each stage needs to be visible to people in multiple departments, but we didn’t have the infrastructure to make that possible electronically, and in standard formats.’ Prior to implementing the Matrix Gemini


LIMS, this information-flow largely involved passing sheets of paper with the relevant information from desk to desk between and within departments. ‘We even employed


Butterworth Laboratories realised the need for a LIMS platform as long ago as 2006 14 | www.scientific-computing.com/lig2014


Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock


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