LIMS Markets

Laboratory Information Management

Systems: The Water Industry

Laboratory Information Management Systems Introduction

Organizations responsible for ensuring water quality (both Clean and Waste Water) face the challenge of providing a constant and uninterrupted service while at the same time ensuring safety and regulatory compliance. Meeting these goals becomes all the more complex, since regulatory standards themselves are subject to ongoing modification. Laboratories within the water industry are expected to provide a 24-hour uninterrupted service, dealing with large volumes of samples and providing timely and accurate results and immediate reporting of any possible problems with water quality. Combined with this is the need to provide information to regulatory agencies that monitor the performance of the laboratory and organization as a whole.

It is clear, therefore, that the implementation of LIMS to manage the data and information produced by the laboratory is vital, not just for the laboratory, but for the organization as a whole. Any LIMS implemented within this type of environment must meet the needs of the laboratory both in its day-to-day analytical role and in its need to support the regulatory and reporting requirements of the organization as a whole. Sample throughput and workload management can be vital to the effective running of any water lab and to its ability to provide the required information in a timely way. Therefore, a LIMS should support the planning and scheduling of the laboratory workload to ensure that the assets of the laboratory are used as effectively as possible and that defined Turnaround Times (TAT) and Service Level Agreements (SLA) are met.

Since the testing required is often based on defined schedules, routes and sample points any LIMS must support the definition of the sampling plans or be able to interface with other systems responsible for this. The LIMS must also support the laboratory in meeting their regulatory and accreditation needs, including maintaining full traceability of information and managing and maintaining analyst certifications and instrument maintenance schedules.

Laboratory Information Management Systems Solutions

STARLIMS solutions for the Water Industry provide the features and functionality required to help these organizations maximize the efficiency of their analytical process while at the same time ensuring they meet their defined regulatory and accreditation needs. LIMS is a vital component in the monitoring of water quality and therefore ensuring that the safety of the public water supply is maintained.

STARLIMS addresses the needs of Water laboratories by providing functionalities such as:

	Support for full QA/QC definition, management and use including calibrations, spikes and blanks integrated with material and reagent management
	Ability to create runs of samples requiring the same testing (either from the same or different clients) which can include QA/QC samples
	Definition and management of projects, including definition of Project Sample Groups that allow samples and associated tests from known routes or sampling schedules to be created using a single function
	Definition and management of analytical Methods
	Integration of analytical instruments and equipment to speed up data entry and reduce transcription errors
	Flexible reporting functions that meet the requirements of internal and external organizations including regulatory agencies
	Full traceability of all data and information generated within the system including full audit trail functionality
	Support for required regulations and accreditation
	Ability to record and manage analyst certification
	Full equipment management and maintenance functionality
	Integration with other information systems that may exist within the organization including sample scheduling and routing systems, regulatory reporting systems and data warehousing
	Resource planning and scheduling

In addition, the inherent flexibility of the system means that changes to business needs and working practices can be readily supported and implemented without losing existing functionality or data. STARLIMS is fully web-based and uses familiar user interfaces, which simplifies both user training and implementation in new sites or new parts of the organization. Global and multi-site deployment is also facilitated thanks to web-based technology.

To Learn More about STARLIMS LIMS Solutions, see also:

	LIMS Pharmaceutical
	LIMS - Environmental
	LIMS Water Industry

Vitens Case Study

Securing Water Supply