The wrong choice could prevent your system from taking advantage of the Internet, and it s very possible that your new, expensive LIMS might never be utilized to its full capacity. Leigh Richardson, president and CEO of Telecation, supplier of the Aspen LIMS, discussed important features of a LIMS that can best take advantage of current Internet technology and wireless portables. PDETs are now vital to the collection of field data. For example, people in the wastewater industry who go out to sampling points and do field testing, enter field temperatures, test results and other information into PDETs, When they come back to the lab, they just drop the unit into its cradle and the information is automatically uploaded via an RS-232, RF, or infrared connection. Integrating lab data with manufacturing and other processes this way is very efficient.
Some labs even link lab data with accounting software.
But of course it all depends on how efficiently the LIMS actually accepts and utilizes this data. We designed our product to use any number of SQL-compliant databases as the LIMS back end which simplifies overall integration with other data structures. On the software front, integration with other software has also become really big now, especially with so many programs going the Windows route. Five years ago, many people had to write proprietary software to do things. We re now using the Office 2000 products which are thoroughly integrated, to provide everything from data management to presentation of information, whether it s graphical or statistical.