LABORATORY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LIMS)

What is LIMS? Issues Solutions

Automated LIMS systems provide a dedicated resource to manage business and sampling processes related to regulatory compliance and water quality reporting. They enable sample traceability, online data sharing and instrument integration based on a laboratory-centric database. There are five key actions at the core of every water and wastewater LIMS application:

Data capture of lab testing results either manually or automatically from instruments
Data analysis and structuring (e.g., adjusting for significant digits, limit checking and logging)
Data reporting in user-defined or “canned” formats
Lab management functionality (e.g., sample tracking and workload assignments)
System management functionality (e.g., data audit trails and archiving)

LIMS applications may include various degrees of automation, electronic instrument interface, sample scheduling and quality control. Some LIMS applications include functionality for accounts receivable invoicing (when performing tests for other organizations), accounts payable (when outsourcing lab tests to other facilities) and integration with core financial systems (GL, AR and/or AP).

Issues
Accurate, timely laboratory-test results are essential to maintaining environmental standards for water and wastewater treatment. Because LIMS generate data for public health and environmental management decisions, their outputs are often an official report for regulatory compliance and documentation requirements. A properly implemented LIMS is the foundation for meeting analytical testing performance standards required by the EPA’s National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC).

While LIMS features may look great in a system demonstration, core functionality must match your agency’s specific laboratory requirements. Because different systems have different strengths, it is important to understand your requirements then select a system that fits those needs. For example: Does your lab report to multiple regulatory agencies or customer sites? How many instrument interfaces do you anticipate? What are your chain of custody requirements? How important is invoicing?

Solutions
It’s easy to imagine ways to automate lab workflow. Westin applies our proven SILC™ methodology to align expectations, requirements and processes with the reality of budgets, personnel, system capability and deployment. As your trusted advisor, we lead your organization through a comprehensive approach to plan the project, identify and prioritize requirements and research alternatives.

Our approach helps you select, procure and implement a system that is appropriate for your needs while optimizing your budget. LIMS acquisition (and implementation) requires clearly defined and documented information flows that identify inputs, processes and outputs. Concurrently, requirements for laboratory computer hardware, instruments and network are considered. Together, these help prioritize required features from those that increase costs without adding value. Requirements also help pare dozens of candidate LIMS products down to those that match your business and workflows.

Once you’ve procured the right system, Westin can help you implement your LIMS to accurately track and document all facets of sample acquisition, chain of custody, storage, preparation, testing, regulatory compliance and results reporting.