Most large labs have some type of Laboratory Information Management System or LIMS these days. Many small and medium-sized labs are investigating whether it is worth the time and expense to implement a LIMS. If this describes the situation your lab is in, I am going to describe some of the benefits you can get from this.

Implementing and validating a complete LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) is a large and expensive project. These projects are measured in man-years and are known to go over budget and on schedule. If your lab is considering such a venture, you should know that it will be well worth the time and expense.

Before approaching vendors for quotes on lab data systems, it is best to have a well-defined set of user requirements. To develop this set of user requirements, you must know what features are available. The following is a high-level list of LIMS features that you may want to include in your user requirements. Many of these compliance features and cost-saving features can be found in the most basic and inexpensive LIMS, while other features require considerable customization and can be quite expensive to implement. If the lab is large enough with a large volume of samples, they will definitely pay for themselves.

LIMS benefits

1. Electronic capture of laboratory data – Data can be transferred electronically or manually from laboratory instruments to your LIMS system. This basic feature of a LIMS brings you compliance and time saving benefits. Lab notebooks and analytical worksheets are no longer needed for any tests captured in your LIMS. File and storage space for these records is also removed.

2. Automatic and validated calculations: perform the necessary calculations electronically. This eliminates calculation errors as well as a second manual verification of the calculations. Eliminating these miscalculations also reduces sample turnaround times by eliminating the need for paperwork to travel from the auditor to the analyst for significant figure calculations or corrections.

3. Data Mining and Reports – Since data is now stored electronically, creating certificates of analysis or other required reports is now just a few keystrokes away. No more manual compilation of all your data! Also, data trending can now be done quite easily. Reports can be created to query your results for user-defined tests and time frames.

4. Event-triggered reports – Reports can be created and configured to run at a specified point in the life cycle of a sample. Some examples of this are: printing sample labels at login, failure reports that trigger an automatic email for any tests that fail, or automatically printing certificates of analysis once a sample is approved.

5. Automatic scheduling of reduced tests: Tracking and scheduling of reduced tests can be automated. For example, an iron limit test that can only be performed every 10th batch can be automatically set to only display on the appropriate samples.

6. Instrument Calibration and Maintenance Status Tracking – In some LIMS systems, instrument calibration and maintenance tests and frequency, as well as the current status of an instrument, can be tracked. When a calibration expiration date is reached, the status of the instruments automatically changes to show that their expiration date has passed and the proper sample was recorded. When the test is completed and passed, the status automatically changes to an approved status.

7. Keep track of the instruments used in each test – Each test can be configured so that there is a field to link an instrument to it. This field can be configured to show only instruments that are up-to-date in both calibration and maintenance.

8. Reagent Status Tracking – Many LIMS offer a module to track your reagents and chemicals. This is a difficult task to maintain manually. The LIMS will automatically change the status of the reagents when the expiration date is reached. By setting up each reagent in your lab in a chemical inventory system within your LIMS, you can easily run a report showing that all reagents expire in the next 30 days. Similar to linking instruments to each test, you can also link your reagents to your tests. By setting the fields to allow the user to only choose reagents that have not yet reached their expiration date, you can eliminate compliance and retesting issues.

The benefits listed above are not all inclusive due to the ability to customize most LIMS to your needs. If you are currently weighing the costs against the benefits of implementing a LIMS in your laboratory, you should now have a better idea of ​​the time savings and compliance benefits that your laboratory can realize.