IT Solutions Focus


Continuous Focus on Sample Management. Improving Productivity via LIMS


The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) is an executive agency of the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). It supplies goods and services to public and private sector customers. Fera was founded by bringing together the Central Science Laboratory (CSL), the UK Government Decontamination Service (GDS), the Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate (PHSI), Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division (PVS) and Plant Health Division (PHD). Fera adopted a laboratory information management system (LIMS) as part of its continuous focus on sample management across its entire site. To improve efficiencies, productivity and sample integrity Fera needed to invest in a data management solution that would enable to organisation to integrate laboratory processes and data.


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Fera wanted to maintain its reputation as one of the best units in the world, and ensuring that all samples are well managed is a crucial part of this objective...


BUSINESS CHALLENGE Author Details:


Paul Burrell, LIMS System Manager, Information Systems Team, The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera)


Fera’s main laboratory facility is located on a 32-hectare site at Sand Hutton near York in the United Kingdom. The laboratory has specialist areas of analysis and testing using in-house LIMS developed by scientists on site. In 2003, with the aim of establishing both best-in-class practice and laboratory-wide consistency of approach, what was then CSL outlined a requirement to invest in a corporate LIMS. Its stated aim was to deploy a central numbering system for samples across the entire site to ensure sample integrity. The intention was simply to ensure that there was only one #1 sample on site, and not multiple samples with the same number in the different areas of work. Being a government organisation added additional pressure to display a level of professionalism—Fera specified that in order to have credibility it required robust processes and that investing in a LIMS would support this objective.


PROFILE


Fera provides robust evidence, rigorous analysis and professional advice, underpinned by world class research, to help Defra, other government departments and many other customers support and develop a sustainable and secure food chain, a healthy natural environment and protect the global community from deliberate chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) or major accidental Hazardous Material (HazMat) incidents. With almost 900 employees across four main sites, Fera provides operational policy and oversees regulation in support of these activities, particularly in respect of plant and bee health, crop varieties and seeds. In addition, it undertakes and delivers high quality support and input into other regulatory issues relevant to its expertise to other public and private sector organisations on a commercial basis. Fera has responsibility to support government in responding to and recovering from emergency situations, by providing capacity, scientific evidence and advice. Fera has over 40,000 customers and 1,000 collaboration partners spread over some 100 countries. This stakeholder base is made up from Government, academia, industry and commerce and, while a significant proportion of Fera’s work is UK-based, it has global reach across Europe, and five of the other six continents, the exception being Antarctica. Fera manages over 600 research projects, analysing over 50,000 plant and food samples a year and is the National Reference Laboratory for chemicals in food, pesticides, veterinary drugs, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in feed. CSL, as it was, before becoming part of Fera on 1st April 2009, invested in a data management solution to improve efficiency and key parts of sample management across the laboratory.


Fera wanted to maintain its reputation as one of the best units in the world, and ensuring that all samples are well managed is a crucial part of this objective. A A Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) would dramatically reduce the amount of error-prone paper work, minimise mistakes and expedite sample management. Fera initially created and operated an in-house LIMS, however there was too much pressure on one in-house member of staff to support the needs of the laboratory, both in terms of back- up support and also in terms of professional future proofing. Fera required a LIMS to manage all samples on site within a single repository. An automated system was also required to manage the issue and reconciliation of laboratory worksheets across the laboratory. Analytical trend data was being recorded and assessed manually, so there was a need for a LIMS system that would readily generate trend data in an acceptable format to support internal investigation and reporting functions.


REQUIREMENTS


The initial decision to purchase a LIMS was a corporate decision made in 2003 by what was then CSL. The team posted an OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) notice and created a user-group committee, consisting of chemists, laboratory managers, laboratory technicians, QA, etc. to evaluate tenders. At the time of decision, one work area alone was processing 10,000 samples with 100,000 results (this number has now grown five-fold to 50,000 samples). The LIMS was a fit with Fera’s stated objective to expand capacity and has provided the ability to move up to millions of data rows. The Oracle database allowed Fera to scale up to meet future unknown requirements. LIMS provide a flexible solution that can be tailored to different projects—for Fera this was key. Fera wanted a system that could be tailored to their multiple diverse requirements.


IMPLEMENTATION


The original usage of the LIMS was standard and followed basic laboratory requirements. The LIMS was required for: package receipt for chain of custody; sample login and storage; bar-coded labels; and results and reporting.


The opportunity was also taken to simplify some of the existing working practices wherever possible and build new processes to take advantage of the flexibility and functionality provided by the LIMS. Today, samples are logged into a central repository, which includes the following steps: setup, sample receipt, login, numbers, barcodes, and ship to labs. Fera set up a central sample reception facility that was secure and allowed in-situ login to the LIMS and storage of the samples. Login of samples is site-wide. There was an immediate mandate that the Fera laboratory had to use the LIMS to login samples across the entire site, from day one. Since original selection, the Fera LIMS team has been


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