LABORATORY INFORMATICS GUIDE 2014 | INFORMATICS


Michelle Idiens, IT manager, Latis Scientific L


atis Scientific is a UK contract testing laboratory and consultancy firm, accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2005,


that offers microbiology and chemical testing services to the water, food, recreational, and building-services industries. Three years ago the company installed an AIS LIMS to replace separate legacy systems in place at GR Micro and Oakland Calvert Consultants, the major parts of which were consolidated into the Latis Scientific organisation. Latis offers a range of analytical suites


that comply with legislative requirements, or can be designed to meet specific client requests. Operating two laboratories in the UK and 10 sample reception sites, the firm often has to transport multiple samples collected from reception sites to the different laboratories, so its informatics challenges start as soon as the sample is received at one of the laboratories. ‘We needed a system that could track and audit every sample from its arrival at the relevant testing laboratory, to logging of the sample on the analytical instrumentation, results generation, and data reporting,’ explains Michelle Idiens, the firm’s IT manager. ‘In many cases duplicate samples from the same origin will be transported to one of our facilities, but one sample will then be dispatched to our second facility for an


alternate suite of tests. Using the AIS LIMS we can track every sample, while it is in transit, and know when it is live at a particular laboratory.’ AIS LIMS also provide a Labportal system that allows clients to go online and register their own samples at any time of day or location. ‘This is then sent to the LIM system so that when the physical samples arrive they can be quickly processed. The tool also allows our clients 24/7 access to their results on screen, as a pdf or as an excel file.’


Working with the relatively small team at AIS LIMS enabled the


platform to be tailored exactly to the requirements at Latis


The legacy systems at GR Micro and


Oakland Calvert were outdated, incompatible, and each had a number of drawbacks, Idiens points out. ‘As well as allowing for complete sample tracking, management and custody chain, the AIS LIMS platform is interfaced with the laboratory instrumentation, and has increased automation of both chemistry and microbiology testing through barcode scanning of microbiology microplates, and direct scanning of samples onto analytical instrumentation for chemical testing. This automation has reduced hands-on time,


repetition of data input and potential sources of error associated with that data entry.’ Results reporting to the client was still very


much a manual process using the old LIMS. Someone would have to generate a PDF after the laboratories had manually inputted all the results, and then e-mail the report to the client. Invoicing was another task that could take up to an hour in one system per client. ‘As well as providing a complete audit trail for each sample and set of results, the interface with our laboratory instrumentation means that the AIS LIMS generates and sends reports automatically to the client by email, in the correct format, and a flexible invoicing capability has dramatically reduced the time required for this operation.’ Working with the relatively small team at


AIS LIMS enabled the platform to be tailored exactly to the requirements at Latis. ‘It’s a COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) software that has been configured for the marketplace rather than by the industry, and the AIS LIMS team has listened to our requirements and built-in the features that we required. The system we now have in place has provided us with full sample tracking and auditing capabilities, as well as an interface with laboratory instrumentation, and this has allowed a major reduction in the need for manual data entry.’


Latis Scientific offers microbiology and chemical services 16 | www.scientific-computing.com/lig2014


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  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40