Most of us are not accomplished graphic designers – or photographers for that matter. But our clients still expect that we will produce easy-to-follow reports that can help them to communicate with other stakeholders how your laboratory is performing.

One of the best ways to ensure that your reports have the information and look you want is to utilize the features inherent with report templates within a LIMS. You should have the choice to customize the look and feel that meet your needs and answer any questions your customers have.

With Omega 11 we have created pre-labeled report templates to meet such needs. For example you can easily configure a report to conform with a quality assurance project plan (QAPP) that is specialized by your client. And you can customize a look and content that adheres to your style.

There are no extra fees for these features, nor should there be. It’s not an option in today’s environment – it’s a requirements. Various certifications and accreditations, such as those from NELAP, ISO 17025, DoD, ELAP and more, have specific requirements on how reporting should look and what information should be included. Best of all making content changes to a report will not affect the overall design.

You may not be a graphic designer. But you can claim to be one provided you have dynamic reporting designs available to you. You can adhere to your branding needs while eliminating mistakes since none of your changes will affect the details provided in the report.

Think of all the features and characteristics that may be keeping your lab from being as productive as possible. The list could be extremely long.

There may be redundant data transcriptions, high batch numbers that overwhelm your lab and need to conduct multiple redos.

You may have inefficient methods of turning bits of data into actionable information. It is possible that you may not be communicating in an effective way with other critical systems in your lab. Today’s modern laboratory needs an enterprise resource planning tool that manages multiple aspects of laboratory operations and informatics.  The laboratory must monitor certain metrics to identify operational goal is to reduce turnaround and improve on-time delivery.

In today’s lab environment these aren’t roadblocks but are merely challenges. At the highest level, what you are likely faced with in too much manual work for your staff and some operational processes that are inefficient or time consuming.

You no doubt have heard of a LIMS but today’s technology is not like the LIMS of yesterday. The key for today’s best-of-breed LIMS solutions is automation, organization and reporting.

Automation allows you to create alerts that will let your lab professionals know when certain samples are expiring. You can stay on time and on budget. Automation can decrease the likelihood of backlog that leads to areas of overcapacity not only unlikely but unimpactful. Consider that a best-of-breed LIMS is designed to help you properly document the activities of your lab at a point in time. Mistakes can be virtually eliminated. Quality is improved. Production is enhanced.

Look for Part 2 of our blog on Productivity next week!

So how did LIMS evolve into the critical software component that they have come today?

LIMS (Laboratory Information Management Systems) are software systems designed to manage laboratory data, workflows and processes. They are applicable to research & development labs, testing labs, Quality Assurance (QA) labs, etc. LIMS also provide a means of automatically integrating the data generated by the various analytical equipment processors within the laboratory into a single data repository.

Early LIMS Systems

Early LIMS were custom-designed and built as point solutions to meet the needs of specific laboratories. This type of in-house systems can take significant amounts of effort to develop and while they may produce a very close fit to the initial requirements, they can prove difficult to change or modify in response to changing laboratory and business practices

Commercial LIMS products were initially developed in the early 1980s. At first these systems often required significant customization to meet a specific laboratory’s needs as far as workflow and reporting were concerned. This increased the cost of the LIMS setup and extended the implementation time required.

Open LIMS Systems

As computing technology changed, LIMS technology developed in parallel and a move towards more open and configurable COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) systems took place. This provided laboratories with greater flexibility to meet their needs within a standard commercial package

Today and the Future of LIMS

Today’s LIMS solutions such as Omega 11 from Khemia offer even greater flexibility and functionality. Many popular commercial LIMS packages utilize open system architecture to offer client capabilities and enterprise-level access to lab data within a client server environment. This latest generation of LIMS moves away from simple sample test and result management to provide the laboratory with a sophisticated Laboratory Informatics architecture.

Contact us for more information on how Omega 11 can meet all the needs you have for a robust LIMS solution.

Our programmers regularly update Omega software to address the requirements of audit agencies or organizations. Many of these updates are part of our regular new releases. In fact Omega gives clients more free new releases than any LIMS provider in the industry today.

• Comprehensive audit trail and chain of custody
• Adheres to standard compliance for Environmental and Industrial labs.
• Document management system
• Daily lab performance and revenue data
• Accounting system interface
• Automated notifications
• Detailed, graphical reporting capabilities

As your laboratory is in the process of preparing for an audit, there are likely several facts that you want to ensure are readily available.

First, you want to make sure that your findings are scientifically valid.

Second your results must be legally defensible.

And in all instances you want to reduce the timeline needed to complete your findings.

In general, your laboratory needs to generate quantitative results accurately and quickly, meeting any client or regulatory deadlines. You want to maximize your lab’s uptime, reduce cost per sample, and move projects from concept to completion efficiently.

If you can accomplish all of this, chances are your audits will run as smoothly as your lab does on a daily basis. Omega will process results in an easy-to-read manner. Key metrics are called out automatically. All you need to do is input the data and Omega does the rest.

We have the proof that your clients, your auditors and any vendors or regulators are looking for. Your next audit doesn’t need to add stress to your organization. The proof indeed is in Omega.