One of the UK's busiest analytical laboratories has recently converted from a job tracking system to a modern laboratory information management system, with remarkable results
When one of the UK's busiest analytical laboratories realised that future expansion would rely on implementing a powerful laboratory information management system (Lims), City Analytical Services turned to the latest technology from Analytical Information Systems (AIS).
Now part of Severn Trent Services, City Analytical offers a range of services from simple chemical analysis to full-scale environmental surveys.
Its laboratory service, which employs 90 of the company's 130 staff, uses state-of-the-art technologies such as gas chromatography, ion chromatography, and inductively-coupled plasma spectrometry to carry out a wide variety of organic and inorganic analyses.
Originally the company was using its own, in-house job tracking system (JTS) to follow samples as they passed through the laboratory.
However, this could not be upgraded to meet the growing throughput and also required time-consuming manual data inputting both at the start of the analysis and then again for the Excel spreadsheets at the report generating stage.
"From my point of view we got no management statistics and no analytical quality control from that system.
It was never going to take us from being a small/medium-sized enterprise to a larger company," explained logistics manager Steve Hart.
As a result, the company investigated the Lims system market and settled on six possible solutions.
Each of these was then scored against a number of weighted variables, including size of supply company, user-friendliness of the system, cost of associated hardware and software, time needed to configure the system, and availability of support.
Against these criteria, AIS Lims version 6 for Windows proved to be the quality solution.
Mr Hart had one day's training from AIS and set about implementing the new Lims system himself over the next six months.
It proved too difficult to run the system in parallel with the JTS, so the final changeover was made over a weekend.
"To avoid doing double analyses, samples that were still progressing through the JTS were finished off in that system.
However, the new Lims worked extremely well from day one," he noted.
The new Lims operates as a standalone system.
Using direct data transfer software, much of the laboratory information now passes directly from the analytical instruments to the Lims system without the need for manual data inputs.
When a sample arrives at the laboratory, it is registered on the Lims system and given a unique job number and customer code.
This has the added benefit of making all samples completely traceable.
Depending on whether the sample is booked in for a three-day, five-day or standard ten-day turnaround, it then enters at the appropriate point in the Lims queuing system.
Once a job comes up, the laboratory staff pull off the worksheet for each one and the analysis gets underway.
When the analysis is complete, that particular job is 'purged', or sent to an electronic 'worktable' from where clerical staff export the results to Excel.
Using in-house written macros, Excel is able to produce a finished report about three seconds after the results are imported.
"It's a very simple and effective system, particularly if you want to interrogate Excel for management reports and statistics.
Some people choose to use report writing software to do this, but this can be very complicated.
We just export information from the Lims database directly to Excel where the information is easily manipulated to generate exactly what we need," said Hart.
At the same time, City Analytical has been able to increase annual sample throughput from 36,000 to 103,000 and assisted the company in making a five day turnaround an easily achievable standard for the business.
For the future, he is looking forward to AIS commissioning an invoicing and quotation module, and to making it easier for customers to access their own analysis data via the internet.
Mr Hart believes that this rapid development in Lims technology is one of the main challenges facing logistics managers today.
"As a logistics manager I very much rely on the information that comes from a Lims system.
I need to be able to see what is happening and react quickly to it.
A Lims system needs to be easily configurable and easy to install in a laboratory.
There are bigger and more expensive systems than Lims 6 out there, but they come with a lot more bells and whistles.
What you have got to ask yourself is whether or not you really need them all.
In that respect, and given its cost, this system is probably the best of its kind on the market," he concluded.
