Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced that Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) has standardised on its Samplemanager LIMS (laboratory information management system) across its laboratories.
Samplemanager LIMS is used to manage more than 150,000 samples a year taken from reservoirs, water treatment works and directly from taps in consumers' homes.
NI Water's laboratories carry out the necessary testing to ensure that drinking water is safe for consumption and meets all regulatory and quality standards.
Standardising on Samplemanager LIMS across its laboratories allows NI Water to carry out high-quality testing and ensures consistency in results.
To enhance the quality of the test methods and to reduce time associated with collecting and logging field samples, NI Water has integrated a handheld remote sampler with Samplemanager LIMS.
This allows field samples to be taken, results recorded and input directly into the LIMS, saving time, ensuring the quality of the sample at log-in, reducing manual transcription errors and providing a secure record of sampler locations.
Remote Sampler, developed by CSols, is already in pilot usage with customers across Europe and in UK-based water companies, who are using Remote Sampler with existing Samplemanager LIMS installations.
The introduction of Remote Sampler at NI Water extends the use of Samplemanager LIMS to field applications, allowing more samples to be processed by in-the-field sampling.
Because Remote Sampler reduces the time necessary to collect and log-in a sample, it enables more efficient use of laboratory resources, as well as consistent compliance with various regulatory requirements for documented processes, such as those defined by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) for the Water Industry.
'Remote Sampler runs on rugged handheld computers and integrates seamlessly with Thermo Scientific Samplemanager LIMS,' said Gareth Maxwell, LIMS and compliance reporting manager for NI Water.
'The use of Remote Sampler allows us to ensure that all samples taken in the field are accurately recorded, taken where they are claimed to be and inputted into the LIMS at source - saving time and facilitating data management,' he added.
As all samples are now recorded on a single electronic database, the integrated solution has provided NI Water with a means to retrieve and report data in a way that would not have been previously possible, while also ensuring the integrity of the field samples at log-in.
